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Hepatitis B in Kenya (HBV) is highly prevalent . Though the people of Kenya are healthy one in every three people in every community in Kenya is infected with Hepatitis B. Among all the virus strains Hepatitis B strain is the most serious one and is the main reason of liver cancer in Kenya.
The virus of Hepatitis B gets transmitted from one person to another through sexual interaction,through transfusion of contaminated blood or by use of contaminated needles for injections. Transmission also takes place from infected mother to baby. The symptoms of Hepatitis B are-anorexia, abdominal discomfort, nausea, vomiting, arthralgia and rash, followed by the development of jaundice in some cases. Chronic Hepatitis B infection results in cirrhosis and/or liver cancer. Precaution is the best method of prevention. Safe sexual practices should be adopted and one should not use contaminated syringes for injections.
A survey of the patients was carried out in three district hospitals in Mombasa, Kilifi and Malindi to study the pattern of Hepatitis B transmission in eastern Kenya. It showed that the male sex is more prone to Hepatitis Bs Ag positivity and that the seropositivity prevails according to age ranging from 20%in the 4 year olds to 80% in 40 year olds. Immunization in this region of Kenya would be effective if the vaccination is given to the people in their early days as a substantial portion of Hepatitis B transmission occurs in childhood. More studies have shown that transmissions are mostly horizontal and perinatal transmissions are comparatively lower.
Distribution of Hepatitis B is quite uneven in Kenya. It is mostly found among the nomadic communities where 30 % of the total number of people are carriers of the Hepatitis B virus. In recent times, with the development of the Hepcell kit, it is possible to stop the spread of Hepatitis B virus which hits almost 10% of Kenyan population.
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