Abstract
AimHigh prevalence of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been reported among the dialysis patients throughout the world. No serious efforts were taken to investigate HCV in patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD) treatment who are at great increased risk to HCV. HCV genotypes are important in the study of epidemiology, pathogenesis and reaction to antiviral therapy. This study was performed to investigate the prevalence of active HCV infection, HCV genotypes and to assess risk factors associated with HCV genotype infection in HD patients of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well as comparing this prevalence data with past studies in Pakistan.MethodsPolymerase chain reaction was performed for HCV RNA detection and genotyping in 384 HD patients. The data obtained was compared with available past studies from Pakistan.ResultsAnti HCV antibodies were observed in 112 (29.2%), of whom 90 (80.4%) were HCV RNA positive. In rest of the anti HCV negative patients, HCV RNA was detected in 16 (5.9%) patients. The dominant HCV genotypes in HCV infected HD patients were found to be 3a (n = 36), 3b (n = 20), 1a (n = 16), 2a (n = 10), 2b (n = 2), 1b (n = 4), 4a (n = 2), untypeable (n = 10) and mixed (n = 12) genotype.ConclusionThis study suggesting that i) the prevalence of HCV does not differentiate between past and present infection and continued to be elevated ii) HD patients may be a risk for HCV due to the involvement of multiple routes of infections especially poor blood screening of transfused blood and low standard of dialysis procedures in Pakistan and iii) need to apply infection control practice.
Highlights
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major public health problem, with an estimated global prevalence of3% occurring in about 180 million carriers and approximately 4 million people have been newly infected annually [1]
This study suggesting that i) the prevalence of HCV does not differentiate between past and present infection and continued to be elevated ii) HD patients may be a risk for HCV due to the involvement of multiple routes of infections especially poor blood screening of transfused blood and low standard of dialysis procedures in Pakistan and iii) need to apply infection control practice
This study investigated the subtypes of HCV infection and correlate genotypes of the HD patients with the demographic data and risk factors
Summary
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major public health problem, with an estimated global prevalence of3% occurring in about 180 million carriers and approximately 4 million people have been newly infected annually [1]. The prevalence of HCV infection among dialysis patients is generally much higher than healthy blood donors [2] and general population [3]. Studies held in dialysis centers from different countries revealed that prevalence ranges form 1-84.6% [2,4] and there is a particular concern because HCV chronic infection. In Pakistan currently, approximately 10 million people are suffering from this tremendous disease which cover. Ab (38% weighted average) was described in the studies of patients undergoing chronic dialysis in Pakistan [5]. The spread of HCV in Pakistan is fuelled due to lack of education and awareness of disease, shortage of medically qualified and scientifically trained health care workers especially dentists, lack of health infrastructure such as use unsterilized instruments, use of high numbers of therapeutic injections and practice of daily face and armpit shaving in community barber shops [6,7]
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