Chronic Carriage of Hepatitis B Virus at the University Teaching Hospital Yalgado Ouedraogo: Therapeutic Aspects and Outcome in a Cohort of HBeAg+ Outpatients

Introduction: The HbsAg prevalence in Burkina Faso was 9.1%. We aimed at describing the therapeutic features and the clinical outcome for the patients taking antiretroviral treatment. Materials and Methods: We implemented a cross-sectional study from January 1st, 2004 to December 31st, 2015. Patients aged more than 15 years with positive hepatitis B surface antigen for over six months and positive hepatitis B e-antigen were included. Results: We analyzed the data of 148 participants for a sex ratio of 3; sixty-three patients including 49 men (77.8%) were on treatment. and 81.5% had inflammatory activity greater than one. Under tenofovir, the normalization of ALT was observed in 42 (84%) patients while HBV-DNA became undetectable in 24/33 patients. HBeAg negativation was observed in 16/25 (64%) patients after seven years of treatment. With lamivudine, 2/9 patients had a complete virologic response and six had a normalization of their ALT. Two and 9 patients lost HBeAg after 7 and 9 years of treatment, respectively. Overall 63% and 27% of the patients were in the high or low-adherence group, respectively. In the low-adherence group, all patients had normal or abnormal ALT, but detectable HBV DNA. Ten patients taking lamivudine developed resistance including primary resistance in three patients. No resistance has been observed with tenofovir. Conclusion: The management of the viral hepatitis B includes often a long follow up period without any medication. When antiviral is indicated, the adherence to the treatment is crucial to a long-term control of the virus. In our setting, the low purchase power of the patients may jeopardize their therapeutic future and there is a need to support this group of patients with free-of-charge medicines as it is provided for the HIV infected people.