Study of Parvovirus 4 Infection in HCV Infected Patients and Healthy Individuals Referred to Taleghani Hospital, Tehran.

Abstract

Abstract Background: Parvovirus 4 (PARV4) was first discovered in 2005, in a hepatitis B virus–infected injecting drug user (IDU). To date, the best evidence about PARV4 transmission is parenteral roots and comes from IDU individuals. It seems that the prevalence of the virus in the normal population is very low. In this study, we investigated the prevalence of PARV4 virus among patients with chronic HCV infection compared with healthy controls and related risk factors among these groups. Materials and Methods: A total of 206 patients, including 103 patients with chronic HCV infection and 103 healthy controls, were studied by use of nested-PCR and also real-time PCR techniques. Results: AST enzyme levels with a mean of 40.45+34.84 and 18.58+5.9 in patients and healthy group respectively and the amount of enzyme ALT among patients with a mean of 40.45+35.75 and 21.50+11.35 in patients and healthy group respectively, were reported. Finally, after screening all DNA samples from patients and controls, we discovered that none of these people are infected with the PARV4 virus. Conclusion: This study is the first to investigate the occurrence of PARV4 among HCV patients in Iran. The results show that, the virus is not important in Iranian population, even in patients with blood born infections such as HCV and further studies in other areas and various groups are required.

Keywords

• Chronic infection
• Hepatitis C virus
• Parvoviridae
• Parvovirus 4