Widespread geographical disparities in chronic hepatitis B virus infection in Algeria.

Algeria is the largest country of Africa, with a population of 40 million inhabitants living in disparate environments from the Sahara to the large cities of the Mediterranean coast. The molecular epidemiology of hepatitis B virus (HBV) variants has been partially described, but variations in the seroprevalence of HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) throughout the Algerian territories are still poorly described. We analyzed demographic features of new cases of chronic infection collected in 41 administrative regions (covering 92% of the population) in 2013.