Hepatitis B carriage and Brucella seroprevalence in urban and rural areas of Bolu province of Turkey: a prospective epidemiologic study

In this study, we aimed to investigate the prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen positivity and antibodies against Brucella in rural and urban areas of Bolu province of Turkey. A total of 4,234 [corrected] people were screened from the urban and rural regions (3084 [corrected] versus 1150, respectively). All sera were evaluated for HBsAg and Brucella antibody. HBsAg, rose bengal and serum tube agglutination positivity were found to be 2.85%, 1.0%, 0.46%, respectively, in the urban area, versus 2.6%, 1.7%, 1.1%, respectively, in rural areas (P>0.05). HBsAg seropositivity in Bolu is lower than in many other centers in Turkey. Brucella prevalence is 1%, which is higher than that in the Ministry of Health records. This shows that the recording system in our country is not very efficient. Similar studies should be carried out in different regions of our country to determine the actual values, which requires the cooperation of scientific foundations and the Ministry of Health.