Incidencia de la infección por el virus de la hepatitis A diagnosticadas en la ciudad de Maracaibo, estado Zulia, Venezuela

hepatitis a virus (hav) infection continues to be a public health problem in developing countries. the aim of this study was to determine incidence of the hepatitis a virus infection in a population from maracaibo, venezuela. from january, 2004 until december, 2007, this study was carried out on 1056 individuals, whose ages were between 1-60 years (average ± ds: 27.48 ± 5.24 years), coming from the maracaibo and san francisco municipalities, venezuela. the igm antibody against hav was determined by the elisa technique. the overall incidence was 26.6%. the north, south, east and west areas of the maracaibo municipality and the san francisco municipality in the city of maracaibo showed incidences of 73 (35.1%), 76 (28%), 66 (24.3%), 35 (20.3%) and 31(23.3%), respectively. the highest incidences were observed in females under 20 years (47.3%) and males under 10 years (53.7%). the most frequent clinical sign was jaundice in 95.7% of patients. deficient sanitary conditions and hygiene habits seemed to be the main risk factors in spreading hav infection.