Prevalence of Hepatitis B among food vendors in Kwadaso Municipality, Ghana

Prevalence of Hepatitis B among food vendors in Kwadaso Municipality, Ghana | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Prevalence of Hepatitis B among food vendors in Kwadaso Municipality, Ghana Prince Nkrumah Sarpong, Alfred Kofi Apetorgbor, Lyndon Nii Adjiri Sackey This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4208299/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Hepatitis B remains a national health issue in Ghana. The prevalence of Hepatitis B varies widely among communities. Hepatitis B can prevail and spread through food vending activities. However, very scanty data is available on the subject. This study, therefore, sought to examine the prevalence of the Hepatitis B virus among food vendors in Kwadaso municipality. Two hundred and fourteen food vendors were screened for this exercise using the Hepatitis B Surface Antigen test. The test results were examined at a Diagnostic Laboratory. Primary data were generated through questionnaires and observations. There was a 9.3% prevalence of Hepatitis B Surface Antigen among food vendors in Kwadaso municipality. The ‘31–45’ age group had the highest prevalence of 40%. The Hepatitis B virus prevailed more in females (70%) than males (30%). One hundred and fifty-nine (74%) of the screened vendors were aware of their Hepatitis B status. Only one hundred and forty-eight (69%) of the study population screened on yearly basis. Majority (73%) of the vendors were roadside sellers. Most food vendors had high patronage of serving more than 200 customers daily. None of the food vendors had been vaccinated against the Hepatitis B Virus infection. Food, water, personal and environmental hygiene at food vendor premises must be closely monitored to ensure food security in the municipality. This is because there are poor sanitation practices in most of the food premises. The study therefore recommends more screening and vaccination exercises, health education, monitoring and food hygiene promoting programs as well as law enforcement initiatives on food vending activities to address the issue otherwise an outbreak of Hepatitis B virus infection through the food vending industry is likely to occur. Hepatitis B Food vendors Screening Hygiene Kwadaso health Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4208299","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":286925389,"identity":"d5b1fb14-3e05-4dbd-8140-efc385bda58d","order_by":0,"name":"Prince Nkrumah Sarpong","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Prince","middleName":"Nkrumah","lastName":"Sarpong","suffix":""},{"id":286925390,"identity":"eb72fa8a-bb6e-401b-86e0-d59f4bbbfc80","order_by":1,"name":"Alfred Kofi Apetorgbor","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Alfred","middleName":"Kofi","lastName":"Apetorgbor","suffix":""},{"id":286925391,"identity":"a4e1d83b-560a-4568-8fa1-7ead8297508b","order_by":2,"name":"Lyndon Nii Adjiri Sackey","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA90lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACZsYGBh4eCQY29saGAxIVDAwGxGvhOXzwgcUZYrSAAA+IkEhLNqhsI0KLOTtz44c3Mhb5fAw5ZhI35x2WN2dvPsDwo2IbTi2WzYzNknN4JCzbGM6YSc7cdthwZ8+xBMaeM7dxajE4zNggDfSLARtjj5m05LbDjBtu5BgwM7bh1dL8G6yFmcdM+u+cw/bEaGmD2MLGlmwg2XA4kSgtlnNAWniYDz6QOJaevOHMsYSDeP1y/vjjG2976gzk5z8ERmWNte2G480HH/yowK0FDBh74MxmMHkAv3oQ+AFn1RFWPApGwSgYBSMOAAA7qlZs722uxgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Lyndon","middleName":"Nii Adjiri","lastName":"Sackey","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-04-02 17:50:50","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4208299/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4208299/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":59984633,"identity":"8340b3c1-6521-4506-ad52-d893803e3761","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-07-10 06:59:51","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":409106,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"PRINCEMANUSCRIPTJHSS.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4208299/v1_covered_ca0ce3e1-9683-495f-b806-3c344d5928eb.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Prevalence of Hepatitis B among food vendors in Kwadaso Municipality, Ghana","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Hepatitis B, Food vendors, Screening, Hygiene, Kwadaso, health","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4208299/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4208299/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eHepatitis B remains a national health issue in Ghana. The prevalence of Hepatitis B varies widely among communities. Hepatitis B can prevail and spread through food vending activities. However, very scanty data is available on the subject. This study, therefore, sought to examine the prevalence of the Hepatitis B virus among food vendors in Kwadaso municipality. Two hundred and fourteen food vendors were screened for this exercise using the Hepatitis B Surface Antigen test. The test results were examined at a Diagnostic Laboratory. Primary data were generated through questionnaires and observations. There was a 9.3% prevalence of Hepatitis B Surface Antigen among food vendors in Kwadaso municipality. The \u0026lsquo;31\u0026ndash;45\u0026rsquo; age group had the highest prevalence of 40%. The Hepatitis B virus prevailed more in females (70%) than males (30%). One hundred and fifty-nine (74%) of the screened vendors were aware of their Hepatitis B status. Only one hundred and forty-eight (69%) of the study population screened on yearly basis. Majority (73%) of the vendors were roadside sellers. Most food vendors had high patronage of serving more than 200 customers daily. None of the food vendors had been vaccinated against the Hepatitis B Virus infection. Food, water, personal and environmental hygiene at food vendor premises must be closely monitored to ensure food security in the municipality. This is because there are poor sanitation practices in most of the food premises. The study therefore recommends more screening and vaccination exercises, health education, monitoring and food hygiene promoting programs as well as law enforcement initiatives on food vending activities to address the issue otherwise an outbreak of Hepatitis B virus infection through the food vending industry is likely to occur.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Prevalence of Hepatitis B among food vendors in Kwadaso Municipality, Ghana","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-04-08 08:27:54","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4208299/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"46d5f1dc-944b-4e63-a2b7-07309d70ea61","owner":[],"postedDate":"April 8th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2024-07-10T06:51:44+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2024-04-08 08:27:54","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-4208299","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-4208299","identity":"rs-4208299","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"qtupq5eGEP_6zYnWcrvyt","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}