Prevalence of hepatitis B virus infection among healthy children and young adults in Heilongjiang province:a seroepidemiological survey

Objective To examine the status of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and intervention effect of hepatitis B vaccine (HepB) inoculation among 1-29 years old people in Heilongjiang province and to explore changes in serum markers among HBV infected people 8 years after the implementation of HepB inoculation.Methods Two-stage stratified cluster random sampling was used to select 932 residents aged 1-29 years in 7 counties or districts in Heilongjiang province;all the participants were surveyed with a questionnaire interview and detections for HBV infection serum makers with enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).In addition,45 residents identified with HBV infection in 2006 were followed-up in 2009 and 2014 to determine their seroconversions of HBV serum markers.Results Among the 932 participants,the HBV infection rate was 7.51%;the positive rate of HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) was 1.29%.Among the participants less than 5 years old,the HBV infection rate was 3.17% and positive rate of HBsAg was 0.26%.The HepB vaccination rate was 88.09% for all the participants.Of the 45 identified HBV infections,67% showed a seroconversion of positive to negative for hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) during the 8-year period.Conclusion The prevalence of HBsAg positive showed a declining trend among healthy residents at ages of 1-29 years in Heilongjiang province,suggesting that a great success had been achieved in HBV prevention and control.