Abstract
Background: During incarceration, prisoners may acquire new infections due to overcrowding, poor medical diagnosis and treatment, insufficient infection control, an absence of harm reduction efforts like condom use or needle exchange, and sudden transfer to other facilities or discharge into the community without provisions for ongoing therapy. Prisons are considered facilities liable of high risk of infectious disease. Investigations carried out in prisons around the world have shown a high prevalence of blood borne hepatitis viruses.
Aim of Study: This study conducted aiming to determine the prevalence and behavioral correlates of HCV, and HBV infections among Egyptian prisoners with especial emphasis on their risk factors.
Patients and Methods: All studied prisoners were subjected to a predesigned questionnaire including socio-demographic data, pre-imprisonment risk factors and intra-prison risk factors. Blood samples were collected from the studied pris-oners who had never investigated before for HBV and or HCV infection and examined for Anti-HBc and Anti-HCV.
Results: Prevalence of HBV among studied group was 8.02%, HCV was 16.4% and with both HBV and HCV infec-tion was 1.9%. Multivariate analysis of risk factors of HBV and HCV infection among prisoners revealed that previous imprisonment history, education status, age, history of tattoo, history of intra-prison dentist visiting, imprisonment duration 10 years were independent predictors of viral hepatitis infection among prisoners.
Conclusion: Prisoners with chronic HCV infection should undergo a full diagnostic procedure and clinical staging before being considered for treatment, since inmates with HCV related chronic hepatitis can achieve a sustained virological response with the same frequency as free patients.
Recommendations: The prison authorities and physicians should implement strategies to improve the diagnostic and therapeutic approach to HCV in prisoners, general screening for anti HCV antibody being the first step in this approach.