A seroepidemiological survey of the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) markers was conducted in a group of 693 dental personnel in Singapore where HBV infection is endemic. The overall prevalence of HBsAg (4.5%) and anti-HBc (29%) was no higher than that in the general population. However, dentists had a significantly higher HBsAg prevalence (11.4%) compared with that in the general population (4.2%) (P less than 0.01) and of other categories of dental personnel (3.1%) (P less than 0.001). Similarly, the anti-HBc prevalence of the dentists (45.6%) was significantly higher than that of the general population (29.7%) (P less than 0.01) and of other categories of dental personnel (25.7%) (P less than 0.0001). It appears that dentists in the endemic area have a definite occupational risk of acquiring HBV infection.
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Goh et al. (1988) studied this question.
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