Review of Albanian studies suggests the need for further efforts to counteract significant hepatitis B virus prevalence

Table 1 Key studies on hepatitis B virus epidemiology in Albanian population

Ref.	Study region	Year	Age	Number of cases	Prevalence of HBsAg
Angoni et al[11]	Albania	1993	Adult	545	18.3%
Dalekos et al[14]	Refugees (Greece)	1995	All ages	1025	22.2%
Malamitsi-Puchner et al[15]	Albanian refugees	1996	Pregnant women	500	13.4%
Chironna et al[16]	Albanian refugees (Italy)	2000	All ages	670	13.6%
Papaevangelou et al[25]	Albanian (Greece)	2006	Pregnant women	409	9.8%
Kondili et al[18]	Albania	2007	Health care workers	480	8.1%
Katsanos et al[17]	Albania	2009	All ages	410	11.89%
Elefsiniotis et al[19]	Albanian refugees	2009	Pregnant women	408	11%
Resuli et al[20]	Albania	2009	All ages	3880	9.5%
Durro and Qyra[22]	Albania	2009	Blood donors	79274	7.9%
Milionis[21]	Albanian (Greece)	2010	10-23	504	11.7%

Table 2 Analysis of covariance results for hepatitis B virus prevalence rates¹

Source	Type III sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	P value
Corrected model	127.702	2	63.851	7.735	0.013
Intercept	1757.171	1	1757.171	212.864
Population	5.079	1	5.079	0.615	0.455
Year 2000	103.685	1	103.685	12.560	0.008
Error	66.039	8	8.255
Total	1914.742	11
Corrected total	193.741	10

¹The analysis of covariance provides strong statistical evidence indicating a significant reduction in hepatitis B virus prevalence rates after the year 2000. The year 2000 variable is a significant predictor (P = 0.008), demonstrating a notable difference in prevalence rates before and after this period. The model explains approximately 65.9% of the variance in hepatitis B virus prevalence rates (R² = 0.659), with an adjusted R² of 0.574, indicating a good fit. The population variable (P = 0.455) is not significant, showing that sample size variations do not influence hepatitis B virus rates. The intercept is highly significant (P < 0.001), suggesting a substantial baseline prevalence rate, which was impacted by interventions and changes over time.