Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine (Mar 2017)

The distribution of HCV in subjects attending hospitals in Duhok City, Iraq

  • Nawfal Rasheed Hussein,
  • Amer Abdullah Balatay,
  • Alpay Turan Sezgin,
  • Rana Saadi Jawad

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apjtb.2016.12.003
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 3
pp. 262 – 264

Abstract

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Objective: To investigate the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) and its genotypes in Duhok City, Kurdistan Region, Iraq. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of HCV and its genotype. A total of 2109 subjects, who attended the hospital for complaints other than hepatitis, were recruited in this study. Results: First, anti-HCV antibody positivity was examined by ELISA. About 5.2% (111/2109) of our samples were tested positive for anti-HCV antibodies. To confirm the positivity, RT-PCR was performed. Amongst all samples, 2.8% (60/2109) was positive by RT-PCR. Then, we genotyped all the RT-PCR positive samples, and it was found that 50.0% (30/60) of our samples were typed as HCV genotype 4, 43.3% (26/60) as genotype 1 and 6.7% (4/60) as genotype 3. Conclusions: The prevalence of HCV was higher than that was reported previously and genotype 4 was the most prevalent. Further population based study is required to investigate the prevalence of HCV.

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