Hepatitis D virus infection in sub-Saharan Africa: a scarcely studied, yet important issue

Sandro Vento, Mickael Essouma, Bartholomew Dzudzor, Sandy Mpho Mosenye, Sydney Mpisa

International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2026

Full text Open access: Gold Metadata (CSL-JSON)

DOI 10.1016/j.ijid.2026.108896

Data confidence 85 high

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Abstract

In their recent manuscript, Simbo et al. found a high anti-hepatitis D virus (HDV) prevalence (18.7%) in the Afar region of Ethiopia [1], a country where the prevalence was thought to be low [2]. They mentioned that the WHO Africa Region also has a low prevalence in Southern Africa [1]. However, it is wrong to assume that HDV prevalence is low in the whole of Southern Africa. Quite a high HDV prevalence (4.6%) was found in HBsAg-positive patients in a 2015-16 cross-sectional study at the main referral hospital in Botswana [3], and a higher one (7.1 %) was detected in HBsAg-positive people living with HIV in the same country in a retrospective study utilizing 2013–2018 archived plasma samples [4].