Keywords
Hepatitis B
vaccination
Risk factors
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Abstract
Introduction. According to the World Health Organization, Global hepatitis report 2024, there were 254 million people living with HBV. Vaccination, testing and antiviral treatment are currently available tools to prevent transmission of HBV infection, but also to prevent the progression of infection. The aim of this research was to identify epidemiological data and risky behaviors for infection twenty years after the implementation of vaccination.
Methodology. We performed a case-control study including 63 respondents that were in contact with HBV (HBsAg positive or anti-HBs and anti-HBc IgG positive) and 62 control respondents matched by gender and age. All of them completed a questionnaire focusing on sociodemographic characteristics and potential risk factors for HBV-infection.
Results. Out of a total of 63 respondents in the study group, 39 (61.9%) were male and 24 (38.1%) were female. The mean age was 56.90±15.576 years. There were no statistically significant differences between HBV cases and control participants with respect to employment status, educational level, or marital/intimate status.
Contact with other people’s blood was identified as a key risk factor for HBV infection, with blood transfusion being the most commonly reported route of exposure in this study.
Conclusion. Twenty years after the introduction of mandatory vaccination against hepatitis B in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the dominant risk factor for the hepatitis B is contact with other people’s blood, and the most common way of coming into contact with other people’s blood is transfusion. On the other hand, the data obtained, that 20 years after the introduction of the hepatitis B vaccine, we see hepatitis B most often in older people speaks in favor of the favorable impact of vaccination on the movement of HBV.
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