Prevalence and Associated Risk Factors of Hepatitis B and C Virus Infections among Mothers in Jimma Town, South West Ethiopia: A Community Based Study

Background: Viral hepatitis affects over 400 million people globally with 6 to 10 million people newly infected each year. Viral hepatitis infectious agents such as hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are among the greatest threats to abnormalities and cause of liver cancer. One of the most important transmissibility of these viruses is vertical from mothers to children. The aim of this study was to assess the magnitude of HBV and HCV infection as well as its associated risk factors among mothers in Jimma town.Methods: Community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 455 mothers from June to December, 2016. Simple random sampling technique was employed to recruit study participants. From each mother, about 5ml of blood sample was collected and tested for HBsAg, anti-HBc and HCVAg/Ab by using ELISA.Chi-square and logistic regression tests were used to see whether there is statistically significant association between dependent and independent variables. P- Value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Result:HBsAg, anti-HBc andHCVAg/Abprevalence was 5.7%, 30.5% and 2.5%, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that history of hospital admission (AOR = 3.098; P <0.040) and abortion (AOR = 15.514, P <0.001) remained independent predictors of HBsAgsero-positivity.