Risk factors of hepatitis B virus infection in children.

Hepatitis B infection (HBV) is prevalent worldwide. Overall prevalence is about 3 percent in Bangladesh. Treatments of chronic HBV infection by antiviral drugs are costly and outcome of treatment is also restricted. Therefore risk factors identification is the logical & rational approach to prevent HBV infection. This case control study aimed to find out certain risk factors related to HBV infection in children. It was conducted on patients attending the Department of Paediatric Gastroenterology & Nutrition and Department of Virology of BSMMU and Khidmah Hospital, Dhaka. A total of one hundred cases and one hundred suitably matched controls were studied between October 2007 to May 2009.Variables used for the purpose of the study were younger age, use of mosquito nets, history of undergoing surgical procedures, history of taking intravenous drug and blood transfusion, maternal infection, dental procedures and abrasion during hair cut in barber shops. Chi-square test was done to measure the level of significance. Odds ratio was calculated to correlate the disease risk. Backward conditional logistic regression was also done for multivariate analysis. The study result showed that the frequency of HBV infection among the study population was higher (62.0%) among children of 7 to 12 years age group. In younger age group (0-6 years) prevalence was 18.0%. Respondents who did not use mosquito net during sleep on a regular basis had higher risk of developing HBV infection than those who used it regularly (p value 0.028). Children who underwent surgical procedures for any reason were significantly associated with HBV infection (p value 0.005). Intravenous drug use (p value 0.001), mother to child transmission (p value 0.001) and history of abrasion during hair cut in barber shops (p value 0.04) were also identified as significant risk factors. No significant association was observed with blood transfusion (p value 0.138) and dental procedures (p value 0.315). From this study it may be concluded that irregular use of mosquito nets, history of surgical procedures, history of parenteral medication, transmission from infected mothers and abrasion during hair cut in barber shops are the probable important risk factors of HBV infection in children.