Seroepidemiologic study of hepatitis A virus among children of Maracaibo, Venezuela

With the purpose of determining the incidence of Hepatitis A virus infection, we determined the presence of antibodies against this virus (anti-VHA) with the ELISA technique in 209 children from Maracaibo city of different socioeconomic levels, ages ranging from 6 months to 12 years. At the same time, we investigated the incidence of a recent infection through IgM antibodies for Hepatitis A (anti-VHA IgM) using the same ELISA technique. We found a global positive incidence of 46.4% for all ages. Individual ages studied showed 31% seropositivity in children less than one year old and a higher seropositivity in children between 9 and 11 years old (50-76.4%). There were noticeable differences in seropositivity in relation to social economic condition observing a higher percentage in children of low social economic level. A recent infection was demonstrated after the second year of life (60%) and a variable percentage through all pediatric ages studied. There was no recent infection detected in children under one year of age which suggests that antibodies anti-VHA obtained transplacentally can last at least for the first year of life as it does with other virus.