Prevalence of Hepatitis E Virus in AL-Muthanna Province (Iraq) Patients

Abstract

Hepatitis E (HE) is an inflammation of the liver caused by hepatitis E virus
(HEV) infection. Iraq is one of the Asian countries with high incidence and
prevalence of hepatitis. In this paper, HE prevalence will be determined in Al-
Muthanna province /Iraq. Commercially available Micro-ELISA for marker of
hepatitis E (HEV IgM, Foresight, USA) kit was used to test (270) patients for HEV
IgMantibodies. Also (10) blood samples from normal healthy individuals were used
as normal control in this study. Among the (270) analyzed serum samples, a total of
(72) samples (26.66 %) were found to be positive for anti-HEV IgM antibodies, and
all these patients were tested for confirmatory test at central public health
laboratories (CPHL) in Baghdad province. These patients consist of (45) females
and (27) males were all negative for routinely screened markers of Hepatitis A,
Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C. The positive sera anti-HEV IgM also were tested for
total serum bilirubin (TSB), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate
aminotransferase (AST), and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) colorimetrically. The age
ranged between (4-74) years old. Highly significant differences (χ2 =10.271, p ≤
0.01) appeared among age groups. This study showed that the HEV IgM is more
common among younger age group ( 15-24), with a percentage of (41.67%). And
higher in females (63%) than in males (37%).