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Seroprevalence and burden of hepatitis E viral infection among pregnant women in central Nigeria attending antenatal clinic at a Federal Medical Centre in Central Nigeria
INTRODUCTION: HEV infection may be life threatening in pregnant women and has been linked with 20–30% mortality, especially in the third trimester of pregnancy. HEV infection leads to elevated levels of preterm labour and other immunological parameters. It is vertically transmitted and could lead to...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9478474/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36117965 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2022.888218 |
Sumario: | INTRODUCTION: HEV infection may be life threatening in pregnant women and has been linked with 20–30% mortality, especially in the third trimester of pregnancy. HEV infection leads to elevated levels of preterm labour and other immunological parameters. It is vertically transmitted and could lead to poor feto-maternal outcomes. especially in fulminating viral hepatitis where both the mother and foetus could be lost. There is currently no known treatment or vaccine for HEV. There is therefore a need to study HEV seroprevalence and burden among vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women and their newborns in Nigeria, where maternal mortality is highly significant. METHODS: A total of 200 samples were collected from pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Keffi, in central Nigeria, of which (156/200) samples were from HIV-negative pregnant women and (44/200) were from HIV-positive pregnant women, using a simple random sampling method. RESULTS: In total, 200 pregnant women [78.0% (156/200) HIV-negative pregnant women and 22.0% (44/200) HIV-positive pregnant women] were recruited for this study. The ages of the pregnant women ranged from 15-49 years, with a mean age of 26.4 years (± 6.23). The overall HEV IgG seropositivity in the study population was 31.5% (63/200); 95% CI (30-33). CONCLUSION: This study highlighted an unexpectedly high seroprevalence of HEV and poor feto-maternal outcomes in pregnant women residing in a rural and urban setting of central Nigeria. The study showed that the inherently high HEV seropositivity and poor feto-maternal outcomes may not be attributed to HEV viral hepatitis only but may be a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic factors. |
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