Prevalence of HBV and HCV in a Tea Garden of Bangladesh

Although liver diseases are common in Bangladesh, the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) has shown marked variation among studies and in different parts of this country.1-3 Rudra et al1 have shown that 126 of 2,015 subjects had HBV. On the contrary, Ashraf et al2 reported hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positivity at 0.7% individuals of Bangladesh. Mahtab et al3 showed that HBsAg positivity is about 5.5% among the general population in Bangladesh. Definitely, these diversities of HBV prevalence may be explained by subject selection diversity. However, there is the paucity of information about the prevalence of HBV and HCV among specific population group/groups. The tea gardens and their entities have very specific features in Bangladesh. Considerable numbers of laborers of tea gardens came from different Brief report 10.5005/jp-journals-10018-1227