DOI: https://doi.org/10.53350/pjmhs2216974 ORIGINAL ARTICLE 74 P J M H S Vol. 16, No. 09, September, 2022 Hepatitis B and C amongst OPD patients Seeking Dental Treatment at Khyber College of Dentistry Peshawar WALID KHAN 1 , ROZINA SHAHADAT KHAN 2 , ABID ULLAH 3 , MUHAMMAD SHAH 4 , NAVEED AHMAD 3 , MURAD ALI SHAH 5 1 Sarhad University of information technology, 2 Health Department Punjab, 3 RMI Peshawar 4 Comsate University of Abbottabad, 5 Swat institute of medical science and research centre Correspondence to Dr. Rozina Shahadat Khan, Email: dr.rozinakhan@live.com, Cell: 03371429776 ABSTRACT Background: Hepatitis is an inflammatory condition of the liver; mostly caused by hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus. These viruses are the main cause of severe liver disease as well as Hepatocellular carcinoma and liver cirrhosis. Hepatitis B is preventable through vaccination which is not possible in case of Hepatitis C. Aim: To access magnitude of hepatitis B and C amongst OPD patients seeking dental treatment at Khyber College of Dentistry Peshawar. Methods: Cross sectional study was conducted at KCD Peshawar. A total 13270 samples were collected during the period of March 2019 to June 2019 selected through Consecutive sampling technique. All the patients were screened for HBS, HCV by ICT method before any dental procedure. Those samples which were found positive for HBS and HCV were reconfirmed by ELISA technique Results: The total percentages of negative HBV were 13110(98.8%) while HBV positive diagnosed patients were 160(1.2%). While Total HCV positive were 233(1.8%) among these males were 143(1.6%) while females were 90(2.0%) Conclusion: Study has shown HCV which has poor prognosis comparative to HBV is more prevalent demanding more health education interventional programs by planning and policy makers. Keywords: HCV, HBS, ICT and Dental patients. INTRODUCTION Hepatitis is an inflammatory condition of the liver; mostly this infection is caused by hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (Kar, Sabat, Ho, Arora, & Dwibedi, 2019) (N. Ali et al., 2019). These viruses are the main cause of severe liver disease, as well as Hepatocellular carcinoma and liver cirrhosis (Dahiya, Kamal, Sharma, & Kaur, 2015) (Desikan et al., 2019). Dental health care professionals are more prone to contract microbial infections including hepatitis B and hepatitis C (Dahiya et al., 2015) (Pratha & Geetha, 2017). Hepatitis B and C account for 96% of all hepatitis related mortality (Organization, 2017). Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is the causative factor of viral hepatitis B which can end up in Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cirrhosis. (Aniaku, Amedonu, & Fusheini, 2019) It can be transmitted from mother to child (Batsis, Wasuwanich, & Karnsakul, 2019) and main reason of spread in endemic areas and of chronic hepatitis (Ding, Sheng, & Dou, 2019) based upon which World Health Organization has recommended pregnant women systematic HBV screening and vaccination(Kilmer, Barker, Ly, & Jiles, 2019) at birth to prevent its vertical transmission (Bierhoff et al., 2019) in endemic countries (Djaogol et al., 2019) Infection with HBV is a serious global health issue affecting 257 million with chronic infection (Organization, 2017). Even 66,000 health care workers annually get infected with this virus (Eilard et al., 2019) (Bittaye, Idoko, Ekele, Obed, & Nyan, 2019). But studies have shown that preventive and control measures have greatly reduced the acute Hepatitis B reinforcing stronger prevention and control measures implementation in high risk group (Koc et al., 2019). Hepatitis C virus is the causative factor of Viral Hepatitis C which is a major public health problem (Bartholomew, Grosgebauer, Huynh, & Cos, 2019 with 1.75 million new case reported in 2015 worldwide (Bailey, Barnes, & Cox, 2019) (Dayan, Ozekinci, Bekcibasi, & Deveci, 2019) with high prevalence in low and middle income countries and one of main cause of chronic liver disease. globally 71 million were reported having chronic HCV infection in 2015(Organization, 2017). It has also affected the paediatric population strengthening the importance of directly acting antiviral agents (Matejtschuk et al) (El-Shabrawi & Hassanin, 2019). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Received on 24-04-2022 Accepted on 25-08-2022 Hepatitis C virus is most commonly transmitted through blood transfusion and intravenous drugs abuse (Behrendt, Bruning, Todt, & Steinmann, 2019). HBV can be prevented with vaccine which is not possible in case of HCV(Elamin & Abu-Aisha, 2011). Direct-acting antiviral treatment (Matejtschuk et al.) is highly effective and can not only reduce the chronic hepatitis C virus prevalence but also prevent the onward transmission of HCV(Knight & Ti, 2019). (Bethea et al., 2019) Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C are the most common serious liver infection in the world. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is responsible for estimated 887,000 deaths per year (Ko et al., 2019). HCV epidemic has affected all the regions globally with maximum reporting from Eastern Mediterranean Region and the European Region of world health Organization. While HBV epidemic mainly affected African and the Western Pacific Region of world Health Organization(Organization, 2017). The hepatitis B virus was discovered by Dr. Baruch Blumberg who won the noble prize for his discovery (Trepo, 2014). HBV also named as called the Australia antigen in the beginning. The present era of viral hepatitis started in the early 1960s with the unexpected detection of the Australia antigen, a protein that represented the hepatitis B virus envelope later titled as the hepatitis B surface antigen which turned out to be the first marker for any hepatitis virus. It was not only considered a diagnostic assay but also an compulsory screening test for blood donor and also the foundation for the first generation hepatitis B vaccine (Alter, 2019). HBs Ag level can be tested by applying HB chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay, electro- chemiluminescent immunoassay, golden immunochromato-graphic assay (Liu et al., 2014) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (Dhiman, Patidar, & Hazarika, 2019). Hepatitis B virus (HBV) virus is the prototype member of a family of viruses called Hepadna viruses (which have small, enveloped, spherical virus particles that are about 40-80nm (1nm=10- 9 meter) in diameter) (Fakhoury, 2017). While hepatitis C virus was discovered as a new viral agent causing non-A, non-B hepatitis by Choo and co-workers in 1989 (I. Ali et al., 2011). HCV is a member of the Flaviviridae family which is small and enveloped, and the unique example of the genus Hepacivirus (Simmonds et al., 2017) HCV is a hepatotropic RNA virus responsible for progressive damage of liver, which might result in liver cirrhosis and Hepatocellular carcinoma. HCV RNA