Prevalence of GBV-C and Its Impacts among Patients with Hepatitis B and C Viruses in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) caused by hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) is currently one of the most common neoplasms worldwide. GB virus C/hepatitis G virus (HGV/GBV-C) is a virus in the Flaviviridae family isolated from patients with liver disease. It has the same mode of transmission with HBV and HCV and is common in high risk group. The impact of HGV/GBV-C in clinical outcome among HBV and HCV is controversy. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the prevalence and the association of (HGV/GBV-C) in the clinical outcome among HCV and HBV patients. Materials: This case-control study was performed in Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. The cases were 101 patients with viral hepatitis collected from Adera internal medical specialty center. The control group consisted of 50 healthy individuals collected from the Ethiopian Public Health and Research Institutes. The serological analysis and liver enzyme levels were determined for each of the participants. RNA was extracted, reversed transcribed, and amplified by Real Time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), using primers for 5- untranslated region (5-UTR) of the GBV-C. Results: Analysis of the 101 samples of the hepatitis patients showed that; 83(82.2%) were positive for HBV while only18 (17.8%) for HCV. The prevalence of (HGV/GBV-C) RNA was 11(13.2%) in HBV, 2 (11.1%) in HCV and rests of the control group were negative. There was no significant difference (P > 0.05) in the liver enzymes level among (HGV/GBV-C) negative and positive individuals. Conclusion: Our study showed that the co-infection rate of (HGV/GBV-C) RNA among hepatitis patients was significantly higher (P <0.05) in HBV than in HCV patients, and the virus has no association in the course of the disease.