Incidence of genotype of hepatitis B subvirus and HBsAg subtypes in native people of northern and southeastern Siberia

Genetic Diversity and Possible Origins of the Hepatitis B Virus in Siberian Natives

“…Previous studies [25,36,50] have shown that the HBV types circulating in all the ethnic groups in YNAR, including the groups in our study (Fig. 1, Table 1), are homogenous and do not demonstrate any statistically significant differences.…”

“…Further, we will see that the native groups of Siberia are also very different from each other in terms of the HBV variants they host. The rates of HBsAg positives in each groups are indicated according to the reported data for Altaians [46], Kazakhs [47], Tuvans [48], Teleuts and Taimyr [25], YNAR [49,50,51], Buryats [36], Yakuts [52,53], Chukchi [35], across Siberia [25], urban population of the western former USSR [35,38,[54][55][56], Central Asian Republics as cited in the systematic review [57], and Mongolia [58].…”

“…It is still unknown why many Siberian native groups demonstrate such high level in HBV prevalence and which behavioral or other risk factors lead to wide transmission of the virus, since no sound epidemiological study has been performed among these groups. Some studies [35,36,53] show that intravenous drug use is not common among any of the Siberian indigenous populations and thus does not strongly contribute to HBV transmission. Additionally, the incidence of HBsAg-positive carriers increases with age in some groups (Kets, Teleuts, Tuvans, Yakuts, YNAR, and Taimyr inhabitants) [25,50,60,61], indirectly indicating that existing (but not yet identified) risk factors affect the whole population rather than only specific cohorts with risky behavior.…”