Prevalence of Hepatitis-B among Clinically Suspected Patients Visiting Ayurveda Hospital, Nardevi

Abstract

Background: Hepatitis B is a major public health problem in Nepal. Though a fatal disease having more hazardous result and consequences has been ignored and neglected compared to other diseases due to improper awareness policies and most important of all being inadequate research techniques and expensive equipments. Methods: This was cross-sectional study carried out in Kaya Chikitsa (General Medicine) Out-patient department of Ayurveda hospital, Nardevi from 1st July to 15th December 2003. 200 patients suffering from jaundice were selected using simple random sampling technique. Questionnaire was used to collect information from the respondents. Results: Among 200 patients, 8% were found positive for Hepatitis B. The result showed that 6.5% male and 1.5% female were positive for Hepatitis B. The age group 20-30 years is mostly found to be infected with Hepatitis B. Conclusions: Children are relatively safe if their parents were not infected with Hepatitis B. Various percent prevalence of the infection was encountered from 20 to 30 years of age which is the most productive age group. Keywords: clinically suspected patients; Hepatitis B; infection; prevalence.