Abstract
Approximately 170 million people in the world are infected with Hepatitis C virus (HCV). There are no published population based studies about the prevalence of HCV genotypes and the associations of genotype and Infection frequency with gender and age in WuHan. We aimed to investigate the distribution of HCV prevalence and genotypes among different gender and age patients with chronic HCV infection in WuHan from 2011 to 2015. A total of 2685 anti-HCV positive serum samples from individuals of physical examinationwere recruited from the Renmin Hospital of WuHan University, Hubei Province in China from January 2011 to December 2015. From these 2685 anti-HCV positive serum samples, 496 samples were with a positive PCR for HCV RNA. The number of HCV infection showed an increase with year, but the annual infection rate has remained similar (χ2 = 2.94, P = 0.568). 2685 cases were infected with HCV from 2011 to 2015 in WuHan city of China. Blood transfusion (18.14 %) was the main routs of transmission, followed by Surgery (8.94 %). The highest prevalence of HCV infection was at the age group 50–59 (25.85 % of 2685) and the lowest prevalence was 0–9 (0.93 % of 2685). HCV genotype 1 was the most prevalent (73.39 %), followed by genotypes 2 (17.14 %), 3 (5.25 %) and 6 (3.22 %). Genotype 4 and 5 was not detected in these patients. The most prevalent subtype was subtype 1b (71.98 %), followed by genotypes 2a (17.14 %). Five patients had mixed infection across the HCV subtypes. Among all genotypes, genotype 1 was highest in both male (73.27 %) and female (73.47 %) patients, followed by genotype 2. Genotype 1 (male: 29.84 % of 496, vs female: 43.55 % of 496, χ2 = 20.07, P < 0.0001), genotype 2 (male: 6.25 % of 496, vs female: 10.89 % of 496, χ2 = 6.81, P = 0.009), and 6 (male: 1.41 % of 496, vs female: 1.81 % of 496, χ2 = 0.626, P = 0.401) were more common in female patients than males, while no significant gender differences were observed for genotype 6. Among age group 50–59 years Genotype 1 was most common in male patients (29.05 % of 148) followed in 20–29 years (23.65 % of 148), genotype 2 in the age group 60–69 (12 cases of 31) and genotype 3 in the age group 50–59 (4 cases of 13) and genotype 6 was most frequent in the age group 30–39 (4 cases of 7). The frequency of HCV prevalence was significantly higher in female patients compared to males before ages 60, while the opposite result was observed after 60 years. The most common HCV genotype in WuHan was subtype 1b followed by 2a and more common among women than males patients. Further studies are needed to collect a large number of samples to estimate the different epidemiology of the HCV genotypes, because the sample size of non-genotype 1b and 2a is not large enough and other factors like disease history/monthly income/etc. are not included in our study.
Highlights
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the most important Flaviviridae infections with significant clinical problems
Mohd Hanafiah et al found that globally the prevalence and number of people with anti-HCV has increased from 2.3 to 2.8 % between 1990 and 2005 and according to recent World Health Organization data the overall prevalence of HCV infection is 0.2–2.2 % in developed countries and nearly 7 % in developing countries, with over 170 million people infected worldwide (Hajarizadeh et al 2013; Mohd Hanafiah et al 2013)
The number of HCV infection cases was increased, but the proportion of infections remained stable by year
Summary
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the most important Flaviviridae infections with significant clinical problems. Mohd Hanafiah et al found that globally the prevalence and number of people with anti-HCV has increased from 2.3 to 2.8 % between 1990 and 2005 and according to recent World Health Organization data the overall prevalence of HCV infection is 0.2–2.2 % in developed countries and nearly 7 % in developing countries, with over 170 million people infected worldwide (Hajarizadeh et al 2013; Mohd Hanafiah et al 2013). HCV Subtypes 2a and 2b are mostly found in North America, Europe, and Japan while 2a/2c is found mainly present in Southern Italy (Cornberg et al 2011; Germer et al 2011; Petruzziello et al 2013, 2014). Subtype 3a, which is very common among intravenous drug abusers, is found mainly in Europe, the USA and South East Asia (Messina et al 2015; Zein 2000). Genotype 4 prevails in North Africa and Middle East and genotypes 5 is endemic in South Africa and Hong Kong while Genotype 6 is dominant in South China, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia (Messina et al 2015; Jang and Chung 2011; Lu et al 2005; Nguyen et al 2010)
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