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. 1976;54(2):193–198.

Type B and non-B viral hepatitis in Jerusalem*

S Gerald Sandler, Daniel Shouval Steigbuegel, Mira Marcus, Marcel Eliakim
PMCID: PMC2366428  PMID: 1088102

Abstract

In a two-year survey of adult patients hospitalized with acute viral hepatitis in Jerusalem, 27% were reactive for the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) by radioimmunoassay and therefore diagnosed as having hepatitis B. The majority of patients (73%) were non-reactive for HBsAg and their diagnosis was non-B hepatitis (“type unspecifiable”). Thirty-one per cent of patients with hepatitis B and only 5% of patients with non-B hepatitis had histories consistent with parenteral transmission of hepatitis by blood transfusion or drug use. An additional 19% of the patients with hepatitis B had possible parenteral exposure and 50% had no obvious parenteral exposure, indicating that non-parenteral transmission of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) may be a significant epidemiological factor (50-69%) in the Jerusalem area. The prominent role of non-parenteral transmission of HBV is further evidenced by the relatively high prevalences of HBsAg (0.97%) and antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen (anti-HBs) (19.0%) in healthy blood donors. These findings are consistent with the view that personal contact and intra-familial spread may be important factors in the epidemiology of HBV and indicate that non-parenterally transmitted HBV contributes significantly to endemic viral hepatitis in the Jerusalem area.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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