The Prevalence of Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C Among Street Children in Tehran, Iran

Summary: Nowadays the issue of street children is one of the most important issue facing society, among big, industrial and under developed cities. There are approximately one hundred million children spending their life in the streets. With the last description of the International Organization for street children, many of documental statistics and numbers are less than the actual figures .many countries are suffering from an individual relation the issue of street children despite possessing common properties, and by controlling this phenomenon each country will get in specific picture. Materials and methods: The study was taken place on 203 street children that were picked up from different places of Tehran and were shelter at welfare center, which provides shelter for street children. These children were clinical examined by pediatrician then they were requested to answer the questionnaire (gender; age; birth place; educational status; the origin of the family; sleeping place; education, occupation, income and social security of parents; number of siblings; reasons for being in the streets; period of living in the streets; street friends; income; means of earning money; substance use. Smoking was grouped as heavy (10 and more per day), medium (1–9 per day) and rare (a few in a week)). In order to determine the existence of hepatitis B, 3 ml of blood was taken. We used ELISA and PCR method. Results: Among 203 street children that studied in this research 196 children were boys and 7 children were girls. 6 cases (3%) were HBsAg positive all of the positive cases were boys. There were 3 Iranian and 3 Afghanian kids among positive cases, there were no smokers. They did not have tattoo, all of them had family, one of them lived alone and other 5 cases lived with their family and their average age was and 8 cases were 14 < years. Conclusion: According to this results, additional laboratory examination for screening aquired infectious disease such as Hepatitis which clinical symptoms may appear few months after exposure to virus but can transmission in this period,are recommended.