Prevalence of Hepatitis B, C, HIV and syphilis markers among refugees in Bari, Italy

BMC Infectious Diseases

Research Article

Livio Melpignano¹  Cinzia Germinario¹  Silvio Tafuri¹  Michele Quarto¹  Maria De Palma¹  Rosa Prato²  Domenico Martinelli² 

[1] Department of Biomedical Sciences, Hygiene Section, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Puglia Regional Observatory for Epidemiology, Bari, Italy, Piazza Giulio Cesare 13-15, 70124, Bari, Italy;Department of Medical Sciences, Hygiene Section, University of Foggia, Puglia Regional Observatory for Epidemiology, Foggia, Italy, Viale L. Pinto Ospedali Riuniti di Foggia, 71100, Foggia, Italy;

关键词: Human Immunodeficiency Virus;    Sexually Transmitted Infection;    Asylum Seeker;    Serological Marker;    Venereal Disease Research Laboratory;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2334-10-213

 received in 2010-02-17, accepted in 2010-07-20,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) and Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) serological markers and the prevalence of VDRL positive subjects in a population of refugees of various nationalities, living in the Asylum Seeker Centre in Bari Palese, Southern Italy.MethodsThe study was carried out in the period May-July 2008 and recruited only voluntarily enrolled healthy refugees. HBsAg, anti-HBc, anti-HCV and anti-HIV virus antibodies were detected. VDRL syphilis screening was also carried out on the serum samples.ResultsA total of 529 refugees, 442 males and 87 females, aged between 7 and 52 years, were studied. Of these, 510 were from Africa and 19 from Asia.Forty-four individuals (8.3%) were HBsAg positive and 241 (45.6%) were anti-HBc positive. A total of 24 (4.5%) individuals were anti-HCV positive. Eight asylum seekers (1.5%) were HIV positive. VDRL tests were performed on 269 subjects and 4 (1.5%) were positive. 12.3% of the study population had serological markers of chronic and transmissible infections with potential blood-borne or sexual transmission.ConclusionsIn Italy, a suitable protocol is necessary for the early diagnosis of infectious diseases on entering Asylum Centres, so allowing the adoption of prevention measures to safeguard the health of the individuals, the residents and workers in the Centres and the general population.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Tafuri et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.