PREVALENCE OF HEPATITIS B IN THE PATIENT COMING TO PATHOLOGY LABORATORY AT COMBINED MILITARY HOSPITAL (CMH) LAHORE FROM PUNJAB

Introduction; Hepatitis is a swelling or infection of the liver that makes it to stop work properly. Most of the times, viruses are the major cause of hepatitis but drug or alcohol use can also lead to hepatitis. In some cases, our body mistakenly attacks its own body tissues and leads to disease. Hepatitis B is a major health problem in Pakistan, India and all over the world. Objective: To estimate the prevalence rate of hepatitis B infection among the patients of Punjab. Result: ELISA and PCR techniques were used for the analysis of blood samples of the patients to determine the prevalence of Anti-HBV antibodies and HBV-DNA respectively. During the 5 month duration of my work 8000 blood samples were taken to find out the prevalence of hepatitis among the patients coming to Pathology Laboratory (CMH) Lahore. The analysis of the data showed that, total 8,000 blood samples taken from the people; 200 were HBV positive, 148 (74%) blood samples were detected to be positive for HBV in males and 52 (26%) in females by ELISA method. Keywords: ELISA and PCR techniques, Hepatitis B, Anti-HBV antibodies.