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F1000Research, Wellcome Open Research, (7), p. 51, 2023

DOI: 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.17522.2

F1000Research, Wellcome Open Research, (7), p. 51, 2022

DOI: 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.17522.1

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Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on routine surveillance for adults with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in the UK

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Background: To determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the population with chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection under hospital follow-up in the UK, we quantified the coverage and frequency of measurements of biomarkers used for routine surveillance (alanine transferase [ALT] and HBV viral load). Methods: We used anonymized electronic health record data from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Informatics Collaborative (HIC) pipeline representing five UK National Health Service (NHS) Trusts. Results: We report significant reductions in surveillance of both biomarkers during the pandemic compared to pre-COVID-19 years, both in terms of the proportion of patients who had ≥1 measurement annually, and the mean number of measurements per patient. Conclusions: These results demonstrate the real-time utility of HIC data in monitoring health-care provision, and support interventions to provide catch-up services to minimise the impact of the pandemic. Further investigation is required to determine whether these disruptions will be associated with increased rates of adverse chronic HBV outcomes.