Assessment of Immune Response in Hepatitis B Virus Infection: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a significant health problem worldwide. Antibody (IgG and IgM) are basic line to evaluate immune response and differentiate between acute, chronic or even post treatment HBV infection. Objective: to discover the rate of acute and chronic patterns of HBV infections and asses the immune response for individuals exposed to HBV infection. Materials and Methods: 80 participants involved in this cross sectional study by blood samples and IgG, IgM concentrations were definite by ELISA technique. Results: out of the 80 patients, 65(81.2%) give positive result for HBV, while 15 (18.8%) tested negative. Chronic/pre-existing disease (58.8%) is the most common rate followed by (21.3%) as acute infection state, only one individual (1.3%) has pre-existing infection, result of age (p = 0.9183), sex (p = 0.5667), or residency (p = 0.8099) was not statistically significant and didn’t show any correlation. Infected individual had markedly IgG levels (3.12±0.45) (p <0.0001) which is the dominant test result compared to the IgM indicating either a past or chronic illness infection, acute infection were less prevalent.Conclusion: acute, chronic, and past hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections can be differentiated using IgG and IgM antibody analysis. Chronic infection was the most common in our community, highlighting the importance of serological testing in monitoring HBV and assessing the immune response.