ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Research Article | Open Access
P. Sneka1 , V. Sangamithra1, D.C. Vidya2 and K.P. Hamsadwani1
1Department of Microbiology, Bhaarath Medical College & Hospital, Selaiyur, Chennai – 600 073, India.
2Department of Community Medicine, Bhaarath Medical College & Hospital, Selaiyur, Chennai – 600 073, India.
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2022;16(1):384-388 | Article Number: 6992
https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.16.1.32 | © The Author(s). 2022
Received: 17/04/2021 | Accepted: 05/01/2022 | Published online: 15/02/2022
Issue online: March 2022
Abstract

Health care workers (HCW) are a high-risk population for Hepatitis B infection. Hepatitis B vaccine which is 95% effective confers long-term protection and anti-HBs titre is a marker for protective immune response. Our objective was to assess the status of hepatitis B vaccination and to evaluate the anti-HBsAg titres among health care workers in a tertiary care hospital, Tamil Nadu. It was an observational study conducted among 610 Health care workers in a tertiary care teaching hospital from June to December 2018 after obtaining clearance from IEC. Workers were assessed for their HBV vaccination status and for their anti-HBsAg titre after getting informed consent. The antibody titres were measured using CLIA (chemiluminescent Immunoassay) supplied by Abbott diagnostics. The data was entered and analyzed using a Microsoft Excel sheet. In our study, 80.5% were fully vaccinated, 18.5% of them were defaulters which comprised the HCW with 2 doses and 1 dose of vaccine and 0.9% were not vaccinated. In the fully vaccinated group, 37% showed Anti HBs titres of 10-100 mIU/ml, 59.2% showed the titre of > 100 mIU/ml and 3.6% did not show the protective antibody titre (<10 mIU/ml ). The 3.6% who did not show protective antibody titre were given the booster dose of vaccine. Among those who received a booster dose, 61.1% responded with the titre of 10-100 mIU/ml and 22.2% responded with the titre of > 100 mIU/ ml and 16.6% did not respond even with the booster dose. In the defaulters 86.7% had titres < 10 mIU/ml , 9.7% had titres of 10 mIU/ml and 3.6% had titres > 10 mIU/ml. In the non vaccinated group all had titres < 10 mIU/ml. The present study emphasizes the importance of screening of anti-HBsAg titres to be made mandatory for all the health care workers along with HBV Vaccination.

Keywords

Hepatitis B, Health care workers, HBsAg titre, Vaccination

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© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.