ABSTRACT

Objective: To evaluate the frequency of hepatitis C virus and hepatitis B virus among children underwent multiple blood transfusions at tertiary care Hospital.

Methodology: This cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted at paediatrics department of Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences. All the children below the age of 12 years, both gender and presented with history of multiple blood transfusions due different hematological disorders at paediatrics department were included. After taking complete medical history, all the children underwent screening for hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus. After taking verbal informed consent a 3 ml or 5ml blood sample was taken from each case and sent to the Hospital diagnostic Laboratory for the HCV and HVB screening. All the data was collected by the self-made study proforma. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 20.

Results: A total of 102 children were studied. The mean age of the children was 8.57+2.97 years and average hemoglobin level was 9.26+2.91. Males were in the majority 74(72.5%). Most of the children 42(41.2%) had thalassemia. The frequency of HBV was 5.9% and HCV was 33.3% among children of multiple blood transfusions. The frequency of HCV and HBV were insignificant according to gender (p->0.05) and statistically significant according to numbers of blood transfusion (p-<0.05).

Conclusion: It was concluded that the frequency of HCV infection was high among children of multiple blood transfusions.