Abstract

The clinical course of infections with the hepatitis B virus (HBV) substantially varies between individuals, as a consequence of a complex interplay between   viral, hosts, environmental and other factors.

Due to the high genetic variability of HBV, the virus can be categorized into different HBV genotypes, which considerably differ with respect to geographical distribution, transmission routes, disease progression, responses to antiviral therapy or vaccination, and clinical outcome measures such as cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma. In this study, genotype specific primers were used to genotype HBV and relate these genotypes to disease severity based on ALT and AST levels.

The influence of alcohol consumption on disease severity and on viral strains was also investigated. A total of 30 samples positive for HBsAg from infected individuals with mean age 29.4±7.2 years were subjected to PCR for the amplification of the S gene and only 11 samples were successfully amplified. Among the 11 amplicons, 7 were genotype C and 4 others had mixed genotypes D/E/F. Majority of the patients were from areas within the south west region.

There was no evidence of significance in the mean AST and ALT levels in patients infected with genotype C and mix genotypes D/E/F (p>0.05). Again, There was no evidence of significance difference in the distribution of genotypes based on alcohol intake (p>0.05). There was no evidence of significance in the mean AST and ALT levels in patients who were alcoholics and in patients who didn’t consume alcohol (p>0.05).

However, there was evidence of significance in the mean ALT levels of acute, chronic and alcoholic male and female patients and there was also evidence of significance in the distribution of genotypes based on age groups (p<0.05).There was no evidence of significant difference in the distribution of genotypes based on alcohol intake (p>0.05).

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