Knowledge, risk factors and prevalence of hepatitis b virus infection among donkey butchers in Ebonyi state, Nigeria

The study focused on the Introduction: Butchers including donkey butchers are among the high risk groups of HBV infection, which impacts high economic, morbidity and mortality challenges to the infected. As a silent killer disease that exists more in chronic form, the infected butchers and herders can transmit to unsuspected persons. There were many consumers of donkey meat in Ebonyi State, who also served as distribution points to other neighbouring states. Hepatitis B virus infection is regarded as the 4th biggest killer among the world’s infectious diseases with 1.2 million deaths per year, after tuberculosis (3 million), diarrhoeal diseases (3.2 million) and acute respiratory infections (4.3 million) due to complications arising from liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Various National surveys found 11.2% Nigerians chronically living with hepatitis B virus infection. In Ebonyi State, a prevalence of 8.9% has been documented among sexually active youths. Objective: This was to study the knowledge, risk factors and prevalence of HBV infection among donkey butchers in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Methods: This was a mixed method cross-sectional study using a systematic sampling method to select 125 respondents in four donkey markets from three senatorial districts of Ebonyi State. Data collection was carried out using semi-structured questionnaires, focus group discussion (FGD) and key informant interviews (KII).Serological test was also done for identification of HBV surface antigen which indicated reaction to HBV infection using high sensitive HBV Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay test kits;use of semi-structured interviewer administered questionnaires to quantify respondents’ HBV knowledge and practices within the donkey markets. Thereafter, qualitative data were collected through focus group discussions and key informant interviews to support the findings of the quantitative data. Quantitative data were analyzed using IBM-SPSS Statistics version 26.0 and Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet version 2013. Chi-square, Student t-test and multivariate logistic regressions were computed with level of significance set at p<0.05, while qualitative data were analyzed by manual Content Analysis using predetermined thematic areas. Results: Showed that mean age as at last birth day (Mean ±SD) was42.5±15.8. Majority of the donkey butchers had poor HBV knowledge109 (87.2%) which was corroborated by the qualitative aspects of FGD and KII. Majority of the herders have spent more than 10 years in the market while very few were found to have had any piercing or cut or head injuries, any other wounds or accidents while working in donkey markets. Prevalence of HBV infection among donkey butchers was 8.0%. Only duration of stay was found to be associated with prevalence of HBV (p=0.047).