Transmission of hepatitis C virus infection from asymptomatic mother to child in southern India.
BACKGROUND
Little information is available on the mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in India, and no interventions to decrease transmission rates have been identified. Hence, we performed a long-term prospective study in infants born to HCV-positive mothers, with the aim of evaluating vertical transmission of HCV and correlated risks factors.


METHODS
Three thousand one hundred and fifteen healthy asymptomatic pregnant women were included in the study. We used third-generation (Murex anti-HCV) ELISA and HCV RNA reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) for screening, and the commercial line probe assay (Inno-LiPA) and direct sequencing HCV genotyping assays were performed to confirm the transmitted HCV genotypes.


RESULTS
Of the total 3115 healthy asymptomatic pregnant women, 18 (0.6%) were positive for anti-HCV. Of the 18 anti-HCV-positive women, eight (44.4%) were positive for HCV RNA RT-PCR. HCV transmission was observed in two of the eight babies born to eight HCV RNA-positive mothers who were followed up for 12 months. HCV genotyping of the mother/child pairs revealed the persistent presence of mixed genotypes 1a and 4 throughout the follow-up period. None of the non-viremic (HCV RNA-negative) mothers transmitted HCV infection to their baby. In our study approximately 25% of vertical/perinatal transmission of HCV was observed among HCV RNA-positive antenatal women.


CONCLUSIONS
This study is of importance as it is the first report from India of a successful attempt to analyze the rate of vertical/perinatal transmission of HCV from infected mothers to their children by a prospective longitudinal follow-up study, and to characterize the pattern of genotype(s) of HCV present in the infected mother/baby pairs, so as to confirm the source of HCV acquired by the newborn babies.
Department of Microbiology, Dr ALM Post Graduate Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Madras, Chennai, India.
Rudrapathy
R
Parthiban
Saravanan
S
Shanmugam
Vijayakumar
V
Velu
Subhadra
S
Nandakumar
Elumalai
E
Dhevahi
Kumarasamy
K
Thangaraj
H K
HK
Nayak
Mohan Digambar
MD
Gupte
Sadras Panchatcharam
SP
Thyagarajan
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000635:transmission* / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D018445:Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical; D011247:Pregnancy; D011251:Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000097:blood; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D055815:Young Adult
D012367:RNA, Viral