Abstract
Injection drug users (IDUs) are considered as a high risk group to develop hepatitis C due to needle sharing. In this study we have examined 200 injection drug users from various regions of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for the prevalence of active HCV infection and HCV genotypes by Immunochromatographic assays, RT-PCR and Type-specific PCR. Our results indicated that 24% of the IDUs were actively infected with HCV while anti HCV was detected among 31.5% cases. Prevalent HCV genotypes were HCV 2a, 3a, 4 and 1a. Majority of the IDUs were married and had attained primary or middle school education. 95% of the IDUs had a previous history of needle sharing. Our study indicates that the rate of active HCV infection among the IDUs is higher with comparatively more prevalence of the rarely found HCV types in KPK. The predominant mode of HCV transmission turned out to be needle sharing among the IDUs.
Highlights
Hepatitis C is an infectious disease affecting the liver, caused by the hepatitis C virus [1]
Detection of more anti-HCV cases in this study could partly be attributed to the self limiting. It is evident from the previous studies conducted in Pakistan that Injection drug use is a predominant mode of HCV transmission
We analyzed the blood samples of 200 Injection drug users (IDUs) belonging to various districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (Table 1) for the prevalence of active HCV infection and HCV genotypes
Summary
Hepatitis C is an infectious disease affecting the liver, caused by the hepatitis C virus [1]. Infection with HCV becomes persistent in > 70% of infected people and may be associated with chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and hepatic cell carcinoma [2]. A quarter of a million deaths per annum occur due to chronic liver disease associated with HCV [3]. Hepatitis C continues to be a major disease burden on the world. According to the WHO estimates, 3% of the worldwide population is infected with the hepatitis C virus [4]. The prevalence of chronic hepatitis C in the Asia-pacific region is variable between 4% to 12% [5]
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