Hepatitis B and Hemodialysis in South America: A Review

Abstract

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains one of the most relevant diseases in humans. In Latin
America the estimated Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) seroprevalence ranges from 0.5% to 3%,
with the total number of HBsAg carriers approaching 11 million. The highest prevalence of up to 8% is
among the native populations of the Western Amazon basin, which includes Brazil, Colombia, Peru,
and Venezuela. The Southern regions of South America (Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina) and
Central America exhibit lower prevalence of HBV infection, around 1%, compared to the higher
prevalence found in the Amazonian and the Caribbean regions (more than 2% of chronic carriers).
Higher prevalence of HBV may be associated with sexual transmission, intrafamilial transmission, and
among persons with lower socio economic status. Chronic hemodialysis (HD) patients are especially
at higher risk of acquiring HBV infection and the main cause for the high prevalence of HBV infection
in chronic HD patients could be the excessive number of blood transfusion, the environment, shared
HD equipment and poor vaccination response. This review presents epidemiology data from HBV
infection in HD patients from South America.