Prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in Mumbai.
A study was carried out to determine the prevalence of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) in Mumbai among certain high risk groups such as renal transplant recipients, multitransfused and haemodialysis patients; professional and voluntary blood donors and viral hepatitis cases for comparison. Repeated testing of 602 subjects for antibodies to HCV using a second generation ELISA assay (Abbott, USA) showed an overall prevalence of 16.9%. We found 36.4% of multitransfused patients, 27.8% of renal failure cases and 26.2% of renal transplant recipients to be seropositive. Voluntary blood donors in our series showed a surprisingly high prevalence of 15.9%, and this group needs further investigation. Fifty-six of these sera (of which 45 were anti-HCV positive) were tested for HCV RNA by PCR and 14(31.1%) of the seropositive samples were also HCV RNA positive. The present investigation not only shows a high prevalence of HCV in the study groups but also proves the presence of HCV genomes in a significant proportion.
Gosavi
M S
MS
Sir Hurkisondas Nurrotamdas Hospital and Research Centre, Mumbai.
Shah
S K
SK
Shah
S R
SR
Pal
R B
RB
Saldanha
J A
JA
Banker
D D
DD
D015139:Blotting, Southern; D005260:Female; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011247:Pregnancy; D011251:Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D015995:Prevalence; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012424:Rural Population; D012698:Serologic Tests; D017678:Sex Distribution