English

Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) continues to be a major disease burden affecting about 200 million people in world. Using blood donors as a prevalence source may underestimate the real prevalence of the virus because the donors are highly selected population. Presently more evidences support intravenous drug use as leading risk factor for the spread of virus. OBJECTIVES: The study aims at finding out the seroprevelance of Hepatitis C virus in high risk individuals as well as healthy blood donors. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: The study group comprise of 350 subjects which included 150 healthy voluntary donors as control group and 200 subjects taken from different high risk population like intravenous drug abuser (50), patients on long term haemodialysis (40), patients with chronic liver disease (50), HIV positive cases (30), health care workers (30). STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Percentage. RESULTS: Seropositivity for anti HCV antibody was found to be 12% (24/200) among high risk population and 0.66 % (1/150) in healthy voluntary blood donors. Among different high risk groups, maximum prevalence rate 28% (14/50) was found in I.V drug abusers. Fifty percent (7/14) of the seropositive parenteral drug abusers were male in the age group of 21-30 years followed by 35.7% (5/14) in 31-40 years of age group. Only one female (7.14%) between 21-30 years was found to be sero-reactive for antiHCV antibody. In HIV co-infected cases 13.33 % (4/30) were seropositive for antiHCV antibody. In chronic liver disease (two hepatocellular carcinoma, one cirrhosis and one chronic hepatitis) and long standing haemodialysis, the prevalence rate for anti HCV was found to be 8% (4/50) and 5% (2/40) respectively. None of the health workers (0/30) found to be sero-reactive for antiHCV antibody. CONCLUSIONS: HCV poses a serious worldwide health problem affecting people from all walks of life in every country. In the present study 12% and 0.66% HCV prevalence was noticed in high risk group and healthy blood donors respectively. Among high risk group maximum prevalence (58.33%) was found in IV drug abusers. Prevention should target the reduction of virus transmission by health education, risk reduction counseling and thorough HCV screening following the suggestion of CDC, Atlanta, USA.