Background:

the hepatitis B is an important worldwide health problem. According to the WHO, it is estimated that 2000 million people have been infected and more of 360 million they are chronic carriers. The diagnosis of the hepatitis B has been done through immunological techniques to detect different viral markers.

Objective:

to determine the behavior of the serological markers of the hepatitis B virus (VHB) in students of the Latin American School of Medicine during the first quarter of 2017.

Methods:

a descriptive cross section study was carried out between January and March, 2017, with students of the Latin-American School of Medicine. There were studied 762 clinical samples that were received in the Provincial Center of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology. For the diagnosis the cases of reagents UltramicroELISA were used to detect entire anti-HBc, UltramicroELISA to discover HBsAg and its confirmatory test, UltramicroELISA to reveal antibodies of IgM type to the core antigen and UltramicroELISA to detect antibodies to the surface antigen, all produced by the Center of Immune-trial of Havana, Cuba.

Results:

the biggest prevalence found in the stage of resolute infection, followed by the one of immunological window, acute infection and chronic infection, for a 5.25 % (n=40) of university students that have had previous contact with the VHB. On the other hand, in 94.75 % (n=722) they did not identify viral markers with the serologic tests used, defined like susceptible. The positiveness for the stage of acute infection was major in men, while for the stage of chronic infection he was older in women.

Conclusions:

the obtained results demonstrate the possibility of incrementing the efficiency in the diagnosis and the epidemiological surveillance of the VHB.

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