title: Active hepatitis C infection and HCV genotypes prevalent among the IDUs of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
abstract: Injection drug users (IDUs) are considered as a high risk group to develop hepatitis C due to needle sharing. In this study we have examined 200 injection drug users from various regions of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for the prevalence of active HCV infection and HCV genotypes by Immunochromatographic assays, RT-PCR and Type-specific PCR. Our results indicated that 24% of the IDUs were actively infected with HCV while anti HCV was detected among 31.5% cases. Prevalent HCV genotypes were HCV 2a, 3a, 4 and 1a. Majority of the IDUs were married and had attained primary or middle school education. 95% of the IDUs had a previous history of needle sharing. Our study indicates that the rate of active HCV infection among the IDUs is higher with comparatively more prevalence of the rarely found HCV types in KPK. The predominant mode of HCV transmission turned out to be needle sharing among the IDUs.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, KPK Agricultural University, Peshawar, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Latif
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: ur Rehman
authors.forename: Ihasn
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ullah
authors.forename: Ijaz
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ali
authors.forename: Imtiaz Ali
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.forename: Aqib
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Iqbal
authors.forename: Sanaullah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.forename: Sher Hayat
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.forename: Khaleeq Uz
authors.initials: KU
authors.lastname: Zaman
authors.forename: Najib
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: ullah Khan
authors.forename: Zahoor Ahmed
authors.initials: ZA
authors.lastname: Swati
authors.forename: Anila Tariq
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Jahangiri
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D007118:Immunoassay; D008297:Male; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D010154:Pakistan / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015819:Substance Abuse, Intravenous / Q000150:complications*