The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with viral hepatitis B infection: follow-up, compliance with antiviral treatment, and vaccine preferences

OBJECTIVE: Elimination pro-grams and interventions for patients with viral hepatitis B (HBV) have been disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to evalu-ate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on pa-tients with HBV infection in terms of COVID-19 vaccine preferences, follow-up visits, and antivi-ral treatment compliance.PATIENTS AND METHODS: In this retrospec-tive single-center cross-sectional study, 129 pa-tients with viral hepatitis B infection were evalu-ated. The patients were surveyed at the time of admission. A special form was created for pa-tients with viral hepatitis B infection, and the form contained information about the patients at admission to collect the study data.RESULTS: A total of 129 participants were in-cluded in the study. Of the participants, 49.6% were males and the median age was 50 years. In total, 73 (56.6%) patients had their follow-up vis-its disrupted because of the COVID-19 pandem-ic. No newly diagnosed case of HBV infection was detected. Among the 129 patients, 46 had in-active hepatitis B, and 83 had chronic hepatitis B infection and were receiving antiviral treatment. None of the patients had trouble reaching anti-viral treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic. A liver biopsy was recommended for 8 patients. Half of these 8 patients did not have follow-up visits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the patients (123/129, 95.3%) received the COVID-19 vaccine and the most frequent vaccine that was used was the Pfizer-BioNTech (n: 92, 71.3%) vac-cine. Serious side effects of the COVID-19 vac-cines were not detected. Mild side effects were found in 41.9% (13/31) of the patients. The COVID antibody level was found to be statistically and significantly higher in the patients who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine than in those that received the CoronoVac vaccine.CONCLUSIONS: It was reported that elimi-nation programs and interventions for HBV in-fection decreased or stopped because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the present study, no newly diagnosed case of HBV infection was de-tected. Most of the patients had their follow-up visits disrupted. There were no patients who could not receive antiviral treatment, the vacci-nation rate of the patients was high, and the vac-cines were well tolerated.