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Introduction: Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) and Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) are serious public health problems worldwide with estimated 350 million chronically infected people. Transmission of infection occurs through blood transfusion, needles, body fluids and sexual intercourse. To know the magnitude of transmission of any disease in a community and for its control and prevention; trend and study of its prevalence is most important. Aim: To analyse the overall trend of HBV and HCV infection and to estimate the seroprevalence in a tertiary care hospital of Southern India. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective study conducted at the Department of Microbiology, Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS), Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India. The data of 77,158 and 58,024 samples for the test of Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and test for anti-hepatitis C antibody respectively, for a period of three years four months (from September 2013 to December 2016) was retrieved from Departmental registers and Hospital Information System. Statistical software IBM SPSS, Version 20.0 (IBM SPSS Statistic, Somers NY, USA) was used for statistical analysis. Results: A total of 77,158 samples were tested for HBsAg whereas, 58,024 were tested for the presence of anti-HCV antibody. Seroprevalence of HBV was 2.27% and for HCV, it was 0.73%. Conclusion: HBV infection is showing a decreasing trend and the HCV infection, a fluctuating trend. Attempt should be made to reduce the incidence of HBV and HCV by simple preventive measures like public education, screening of blood and blood products, increasing public awareness about importance of vaccination.

Introduction: Chikungunya infection is an acute disabling illness characterised by high fever and severe arthralgia. Most of the patients recover completely; however few may develop postChikungunya Chronic Inflammatory Rheumatism (CHIK-CIR). Aim: To detect the seroprevalence of chikungunya among Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients and to demonstrate association between them. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study conducted from July 2018 to November 2018 at the Department of Microbiology, in a tertiary care hospital. Patients attending rheumatology clinic with complaints of arthritis and clinically suspected to have RA were included in the study. Samples were tested for Anti-Citrullinated Peptide Antibodies (ACPA), Anti-Chikungunya IgM and IgG antibodies by Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) as per manufacturer’s instructions. Results: A total of 373 patients were included in the study. Of these serum samples 90 (24.12%) samples were positive for ACPA, with female predominance (n=66, 73.33%) and 29 (7.77%) patients’ serum samples tested positive for chikungunya IgM. Highest positivity for APCA was observed in the age group 40-60 years (n=47, 52.22%). IgG ELISA for chikungunya was positive in 58.89% (n=53), 60% (n=27) and 46.67% (n=21) of clinically suspected and ACPA positive, 45 clinically suspected but ACPA negative and 45 healthy individuals respectively. The difference was not statistically significant across the different groups. However, seroprevalence was higher among patients suffering with arthralgia as compared to that of healthy population group. Conclusion: Rheumatologist should always consider Chikungunya infection as one of the causes for arthralgia. In endemic countries like India it is difficult to ascertain whether chikungunya infection progresses to RA or not.