Seroprevalence of Hepatitis A virus and Hepatitis E virus in patients presenting with acute viral hepatitis: A retrospective study of 2-years at tertiary care Hospital, Himachal Pradesh in Northern India

: Hepatitis-A virus and Hepatitis-E virus are spread enterically, resulting in acute viral hepatitis (AVH) in developing countries. Fecal-oral transmitted hepatitis cause major health problems in our country. The aim of present study is to determine the seroprevalence of HAV and HEV in AVH patients attending the tertiary care hospital at Dr. Rajendra Prasad Govt. Medical College Kangra at Tanda, Himachal Pradesh (DRPGMC). Insufficient data makes it difficult to determine an accurate prevalence of illness in this region of India.: The Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL), in the Department of Microbiology at DRPGMC Tanda, Himachal Pradesh, consolidated retrospective data of 2-years duration. The study population included 784 serum samples received from outdoor and indoor patients were considered in the study.: Of the 784 serum samples that were chosen for our study, HAV and HEV reactive patients showed a seroprevalence of 11.20% and 1.80% respectively. During two years of the study, the co-infection rate of HAV and HEV in patients with acute viral hepatitis was 0.5%. Compared to females (31.80% and 42%), males reported higher seroprevalence of HAV (68.10%) and HEV (57.10%). Further data shows that HAV infection was observed in all age groups and the highest prevalence was reported in the age range from 11 to 20 years. The HEV infection was not observed in the pediatric age groups, it was only observed in adults. Maximum prevalence of HEV was reported in the age group of 21-30 years. The highest number of reactive cases was recorded in the month of August and September.: We found that the prevalence of HAV is significantly higher than that of HEV during two years of study period. In this study, we observed that HAV is more predominant in males as compare to females.HEV infections were only observed in adults.