Prevalence and risk factors for hepatitis C and B viruses infection among hemodialysis patients in Iraq

In this study, the prevalence of HCV infection was thoroughly evaluated among patients at all hemodialysis facilities in Imam Hussein Medical City, Karbala, Iraq. The study was conducted to investigate the prevalence, anti-HCV risk factors, and surface antigen of the hepatitis B virus (HBsAg) among Hemodialysis patients in the hemodialysis center/ Imam Hussein Medical City. This cross-sectional study was performed between October 2014 and May 2020 in Habib bin Mazher Center for hemodialysis in Imam Hussein Medical City, Karbala, Iraq. A total of 446 patients with end-stage renal failure who have been on Hemodialysis for at least five months and up to 4 years were involved in this study. Out of four hundred forty-six (446) patients, 5 (1.12%) patient was HBsAg positive, and 95 (21.30%) patients were diagnosed as anti-HCV seropositive. Only one patient showed infection with both HCV and HBV. From the study observation, the female gender, aged between 38-62 yrs., married, patients who lived in rural areas, were illiterate, or were housewives had the greatest rates of anti-HCV and HBsAg positive compared to the rest of the females. A patient with a positive history of blood transfusion 65(68.42%) (14.575) is more likely to be infected with C and B. The number of patients conducting dialysis in another Center is 50(52.63%), showing a great effect on the transmission of the virus. The main problem some nurses are not taking care of such not changing medical gloves when leaving the halls of people infected with HCV and HBV to those not infected. Dialysis in multiple has less protocol observation which causes the virus to transmit to the dialysis center. Some exercises or practices are unintentional negligence by dialysis maintenance engineers when working on a device in the (HCV) hall and the non-infected person’s lobby without changing their medical gloves.