Incidence of newly diagnosed HIV, HBV, HCV infections in a tertiary care hospital in rural setting

Aim: the study is conducted to estimate the incidence of newly acquired HIV, HBV, and HCV infections in patients comprising of paying and non paying cases in a tertiary care hospital in suburbs of Hyderabad. The study period included a duration of 1 year starting from 1st January 2016 to 31st December 2016. The two groups represent the difference in the socio economic status. Materials and Methods: the serum samples were received in microbiology laboratory from patients as routine surgical screening or anti natal screening. The testing for HIV, HBV, HCV is done according to the policy of the laboratory. Results: In the paying group, out of 4055 patients tested for HIV, and HBV the percentage of positivity are 0.62 and 2.34 respectively and HCV was positive in 0.73% of 2846 patients. In non paying group, the percentages of positive results are 1.066, 1.243 and 0.61 for HIV, HBV, HCV out of 3094, 2956, and 1140 respectively. These results show interesting trends in these two groups. In paying group the predominant infection is HBV infection while in nonpaying group the predominant one is HIV infection. Conclusions: these observations emphasize the role of socio economic status in the occurrence of HIV infection and the need for increasing efforts for education of this population, and the need for more wide spread vaccination of the population against HBV.