Hepatitis B 2019 - acute and chronic
Acute hepatitis B 2019
In 2019, the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Prevention received six notifications concerning people with acute hepatitis B (HBV); three of the cases were men, the other three women. The median age was 44 years (range 28-47 years). Four persons were of Danish origin, one was a second-generation immigrant, and one was a first-generation immigrant.Three persons had become infected in Denmark; two by heterosexual transmission from persons known to have HBV, and one by homosexual transmission. Two of the remaining persons had presumably become infected in Turkey and Ghana, respectively. Finally, in one case, the country of infection was not stated.
Chronic hepatitis B 2019
In 2019, the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Prevention received 164 notifications of chronic hepatitis B; Table 1.A total of 114 (70%) were women, Table 2. The median age for women was 32 years (range: 17-79 years), for men it was 34 years (range 2-74 years).
A total of 78 (68%) of the women were detected in the general screening of pregnant women.
None of the 114 women notified with chronic hepatitis B in 2019 were born in Denmark. Among the 50 men notified with chronic hepatitis B, six were Danes; one was notified with homosexual transmission, two were mother-to-child transmissions occurring prior to the introduction of the general screening of pregnant women; and in three cases, the mode of infection was unknown.
The remaining 158 notified persons (96%) were of foreign origin, including eight second-generation immigrants who had all been notified as having become infected at birth in Denmark. The seven persons had become infected prior to the introduction of the general screening of pregnant women. The final person was a child who had become infected by its mother, who tested positive as part of the pregnancy screening. The child had become infected despite vaccination at birth and was presumably infected in utero due to a high viral load.
The notified people of foreign origin were distributed on 36 different countries, including 39 persons (25%) from South-east Asia and another 39 (25%) from Central or East Europe, including 18 from Romania, Figure 1.
Among the 93 persons for whom information on route of transmission was available, the most frequent mode of transmission was mother-to-child transmission (n=76, 82%), Table 3.
Four were notified as nosocomially infected, all abroad, none were Danes.
Five were notified as heterosexually infected, one in Denmark and four abroad. One immigrant was notified as having become infected via IV drug use abroad. One Danish man has notified as having become infected homosexually in Denmark.
Five persons were notified as having become infected by close social contact in their countries of origin before immigrating to Denmark. One immigrant was notified as having become infected due to tattooing abroad.
For the remaining 71 persons, the mode of infection was unknown, 59 hereof had become infected abroad; in seven of these cases, the country of infection was unknown; and five had become infected in Denmark, all of whom were born in Denmark.
This report is also described in EPI-NEWS 17/20.