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Prevalence and common genotypes of HCV infection in Sudanese patients with hepatosplenic schistosomiasis.

Mudawi HM, Smith HM, Fletcher IA, Fedail SS

Department of Internal Medicine, University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan. hmudawi@hotmail.com

A cross-sectional hospital based study was carried out at the National Center for Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease in Khartoum, Sudan to determine the prevalence, common genotypes and risk factors for hepatitis C virus infection in Sudanese patients with hepatosplenic schistosomiasis. A total of 176 patients with hepatosplenic schistosomiasis were tested for HCV antibodies and 4.5% of the samples were reactive. PCR was positive in 2.3% of cases and genotype 4 was the major genotype isolated with subtypes 4, 4e, and 4c/4d. It is concluded that HCV was of low seroprevalence in the study population and that parenteral antischistosomal therapy was not a significant risk factor in transmission of infection in the Sudan.

Published 9 July 2007 in J Med Virol, 79(9): 1322-4.
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