PREVALENCE OF HELICOBACTER PYLORI INFECTION AMONG PATIENTS AT BENUE STATE UNIVERSITY TEACHING HOSPITAL, MAKURDI.

Helicobacter pylori (HP) is a gram-negative microaerophilic bacterium that infects the epithelial lining of the stomach and is a causative agent of gastritis, peptic ulcer disease, mucosa associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma and gastric cancer. This study determined the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection among patients at Benue State University Teaching Hospital, Makurdi. This was a retrospective study conducted using a chromatographic lateral flow immunoassay which detects IgG antibodies specific to H. pylori. All data collected was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 18 (PASW statistics 18). A total of 121 patients were examined for the study and 79 were observed to be infected and this gave an overall prevalence of 65.29 %. It was also observed that the female patients had higher rate of infection (71.43%) than the male patients (51.35%). Patients between the ages of 31-40 years had the highest rate of infection (78.43%). This was followed by those between 21-30 years (66.67%), 41-50 years (40%), and 10-20 years (31.25%) respectively. It was further observed that patients who were into business / Trading had slightly higher rate of infection (68.29%), while public servants and students which had the infection rate of 63.16% each were the least. It was also observed that those that were widows had the highest rate of infection (85.71%) while those that were single had the least (48.39%) and patients from urban area had slightly higher rate of infection (65.91%) than those in the rural area (63.64%). Finally, patients with SSCE had higher rate of infection (77.36 %) than those with tertiary educational level (62.30 %) and no infection was observed in those with primary educational level (0.00 %). Higher prevalence of H. pylori infection has been recorded in this study area. Poor socioeconomic factors, poor hygiene, eating unprocessed food, restaurant meals, meat, and unfiltered water may be the major contributing factors to H. pylori infection and its complications. Lifestyle modifications are necessary to minimize the risk of H. pylori infection.