Abstract
Molecular techniques (PCR, sequence analysis) have allowed to data that greatly contributed to the knowledge and understanding of the epidemiology of Hepatitis C virus (HCV). Genotyping assays provided informations on his worlwide distribution and on the distinct geographical repartition of some types. These molecular data allow to the reconstruction of virus origin and routes of transmission. Furthermore, they led to the identification of several large-scale outbreaks of HCV infection. Nucleotide sequence analysis has provided additional informations that strengths the first observations. In particular, the evaluation of HCV gene nucleotide mutation rates have led to calculation of divergence times between genotypes, and after extrapolation, to date the common ancestor of different types of HCV. These informations are in agreement with their present geographical distribution. Finally, information from nucleic acid sequences may be used to infer phylogenetic relationships among virus variants. This approach has been used to investigate possible transmission events between pair of individuals.
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