Prevalence and clinical presentation of HDV infection in Central Europe in relation to country of birth

The epidemiology of Hepatitis D Virus (HDV) infection in Europe has changed significantly during the last 2 decades. E.g., a decline of HDV prevalence from 23% to 8% among HBsAg-positive patients has been observed in Italy between 1987 and 1997. However, limited data on the prevalence of HDV infection is available for other European countries and increasing immigration of individuals from HDV endemic areas has rarely been considered. We investigated anti-HDV antibodies in sera from 2354 consecutive HBsAg-positive patients sent to the diagnostic laboratory of our department between 1992 and April 2006. Overall, 2…