The Prevalence of Hepatitis D Virus in Reactive HBsAg Blood Donors at Department of Pathology, LUMHS Jamshoro

Background: The hepatitis delta virus (HDV) is a defective hepatotropic virus that only affects patients infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV). Infection with the hepatitis delta virus can cause acute hepatitis, including the fulminant presentation or spontaneously resolving infection and chronic infection Aim: The present study's aim was to determine the prevalence of the Hepatitis D virus in reactive HBsAg blood donors at Diagnostic and Research Lab Hyderabad. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 434 blood donors at the Pathology department (Diagnostic and Research Laboratory) Civil Hospital, Hyderabad from January 2017 to December 2017. All the healthy individuals who visited at Diagnostic and Research Laboratory of Civil Hospital, LUMHS Hyderabad as blood donors with specific age groups of either gender were included in this study. All the individuals underwent Hepatitis screening. All of those cases that were noted with positive HBV further underwent HDV screening test. All the data was recorded in the proforma for the purposed of analysis. SPSS version 20 was used for data analysis. Results: Of the total 434 blood donors, 420 (96.8%) were male and 14 (3.2%) were female. The overall mean age was 31.65±4.67 years with an age range of 18 to 60 years. Out of 434, the incidence of positive delta virus was 62 (14.3%) while the remaining 372 (85.7%) were negative delta hepatitis blood donors. The prevalence of delta hepatitis blood donors with respect to age distribution were as follows; 18-30 years had 208 (48%), 31-40 years had 188 (27%), 41-50 years 69 (16%), and 51-60 years 39 (9%). Of the total 62 positive delta hepatitis, the prevalence of males and females was 98.4% and 1.6% respectively. All the donor’s blood group was divided into +O, +B, +A, +AB, -O, -A, and –B with their respective prevalence was 48.6%, 22.6%. 11.5%, 8.8%, 2.5%, 3.5%, and 2.5% whereas their frequency in positive tested delta hepatitis was 36 (58.1%), 7 (11.3%), 10 (16.1%), 6 (9.7%), 1 (1.6%), 2 (3.2%), and 0 (0%) respectively. Conclusion: It is concluded that the prevalence of HDV is 14.3% in Hepatitis B reactive healthy donors. This is a higher prevalence as compared to previously published studies. No such adequate recent data is available at the local level. More research is needed on this event, to provide adequate knowledge, which will be helpful to clinical and laboratory investigators, and physicians to reduce the burden of liver disease caused by HBV and HDV co-infection. Keywords: Hepatitis delta virus; HBsAg reactivity; Blood donors;