Abstract:

Introduction: Hepatitis B (HBV) is a global public health problem because of its worldwide prevalence and potential to cause adverse consequences such as acute hepatitis B, chronic hepatitis B, hepatocellular carcinoma and liver failure. HBV affects both male and female gender with different ages. HBV vaccine was implemented in Tanzania since 2003 targeting children under five years of age with a coverage of >90%. However, the magnitude of HBV infection among children after vaccine implementation is not well understood. This study was designed to determine the prevalence and associated factors of HBsAg among school aged children in urban and rural areas in Mwanza, Tanzania.

Methodology: A laboratory based analytical cross-sectional study involving 334 of archived sera collected in 2018 from school aged children of different public schools in urban and rural areas in Mwanza, was conducted from July to August 2023. Detection of HBsAg was done using one step HBsAg Rapid Test kit. Data analysis was done using STATA version 15.

Results: The median age of the study participants was 9(IQR6-12) years. Female formed most 208 (62.3%) of the study participants. Majority of the study participants 75.5% (252) lived in urban settlement. A prevalence of 0.3% was determined after only one participant tested positive for HBsAg, therefore no factor could be linked to the prevalence.

Conclusion: Present study revealed prevalence of HBsAg is low among school aged children, these findings indicate that children were highly covered by vaccination against Hepatitis B virus, while no any factors were statistically significant however screening for HBsAg after vaccination is important to assess the effectiveness of the vaccination and help to detect cases where the vaccine did not provide adequate protection.