International Journal of Sciences: Basic and Applied Research
Abstract
In develop?ng countries such as Iraq, hepatitis B (HBV) and C virus (HCV) are leading health care problems. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the frequency of HBV and HCV in healthy individuals selected for the recruitment in police services in Duhok city. In the study, blood samples from 566 candidates of police recruitment were collected and tested for HBV surface antigen (HBs Ag) and HCV antibody (AB) positivity by ELISA. It was found that 41/566 (7.2%) subjects were positive for HBs Ag. None of the recruited subjects was positive for HCV AB. To conclude, the prevalence of HBs Ag positivity was high in newly recruited police officers. Further study recruiting larger sample size is needed to confirm such a result
