The Prevalence of Hepatitis A in Children in British Columbia

Abstract

Children in nonurban areas of British Columbia are generally at low risk of HAV infection during the first decade of life regardless of the reported population rates, thereby permitting the consideration of school-based HAV immunization programs.

Participant-collected, Mail-delivered Oral Fluid Specimens Can Replace Traditional Serosurveys

“…The relatively high prevalence of anti-HAV among nonvaccinated individuals resulted mainly from individuals born outside Canada, as the rate in Canadian-born subjects was only 8.8%. The greater prevalence of anti-HAV in Canadian-born individuals in their late thirties than in their early twenties is consistent with our earlier reports 8,10 that hepatitis A is relatively uncommon among children and suggests that young adults are at substantial risk. Our data also support earlier reports 10,15 that foreign travel is an important risk factor for Canadians.…”

“…The greater prevalence of anti-HAV in Canadian-born individuals in their late thirties than in their early twenties is consistent with our earlier reports 8,10 that hepatitis A is relatively uncommon among children and suggests that young adults are at substantial risk. Our data also support earlier reports 10,15 that foreign travel is an important risk factor for Canadians. While the number of anti-HAV-positive individuals and the number reporting travel to the developing world for more than 2 weeks at a time were relatively few, it is worth noting that 60% of Canadian-born, non-vaccinated individuals with anti-HAV reported such travel.…”

“…Participants were asked to complete a onepage questionnaire and return it along with the oral fluid sample. This instrument was validated previously [8][9][10] and collected the following information: birth date and gender; country of birth and, if relevant, age of immigration to Canada; the first three digits of their home postal code as a communitylevel geolocator; any personal or family history of hepatitis A infection, personal history of hepatitis A immunization; and past extensive travel to developing countries. We did not pose questions regarding racial group, injection drug use, sexual practices or involvement in the sex trade.…”

Seroprevalence of hepatitis A infection in a low endemicity country: a systematic review

“…A total of 36 reports describing 34 unique studies were included in the systematic review (Table 1) [18,19,22-55]. These were obtained from screening 413 potentially relevant citations and reviewing 66 full-text study reports and 25 public health reports (Figure 1).…”

“…There was no association between seropositivity and gender based on 9 population comparisons from 5 studies (n = 4158, URR: 1.0 [95% CI: 0.9, 1.1]) [22,31,35,41,54], which was consistent with results of 3 other studies reporting adjusted risk estimates (Table 3) [25,34,48]. Two studies in the early 1980's suggested that individuals living in urban areas were 30% more likely to have HAV antibody compared to those in rural areas (n = 647, URR: 1.3 [1.2, 1.5]) [41,46].…”