Hepatitis B Virus Seroprevalence and Serology Patterns in a Cohort of HIV Positive Individuals from Harare, Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is highly endemic for hepatitis B virus (HBV) and also has high human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevalence rates which may result in HIV/HBV coinfection, and as HIV/HBV coinfection may affect the classical HBV serology patterns and cause interpretation challenges, we assessed the seroprevalence of HBV in HIV positive patients and determined their serology profiles. This was a cross-sectional study on 957 HIV positive specimens from treatment naive patients. HBV serology tests were done using enzyme immunoassays for the detection of HBV markers in human serum or plasma. Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) prevalence was 17.1% (males 19.0%, females 15.8%). Previous and/or current HBV exposure was evident in 59.8% of the patients and hepatitis B e antigen markers were present in 103 (10.8%) specimens. There was high prevalence of unusual HBV patterns with 14.1% of total specimens showing an anti-HBc alone profile and an additional 4.3% HBsAg positive specimens that were anti-HBc negative.