SEROPREVALENCE OF HEPATITIS-A, HEPATITIS- B, HEPATITIS-C AND HEPATITIS-D VIRUS-INFECTION IN PREGNANT-WOMEN

Objective, To determine the seroprevalence of hepatitis A, B, C and D virus infection among pregnant women attending a perinatal care hospit al. Material and methods. A prospective study was carried out to deter mine the seroprevalence of hepatitis A virus IgG antibodies (anti-HAV) , hepatitis B vines markers (anti-HBcAg and HBsAg) and hepatitis C vir us antibodies (anti-HCV) in pregnant women. In HBsAg positive cases, H BeAg and hepatitis D virus antibodies (anti-HDV) were investigated All analyses were performed with the ELISA technique. Results, Of the 1 5 00 pregnant women studied, 93.3% were positive for anti-HAV IgG. The H BsAg seroprevalence was 0.26% and anti-HCV seroprevalence was 0.53%. T here were no patients with HBeAg or anti-HDV. Conclusions, A higher se roprevalence of HBsAg was found in this study than in other studies of pregnant Mexican women. We propose that HBsAg screening become a rout ine prenatal test.