Seroprevalence of hepatitis C virus in general population of Balochistan,Pakistan

Background: hepatitis c virus is an important public health problem and major etiological agent of chronic liver disease all over the world. chronic hepatitis c virus infection is indolent and asymptomatic disease in human can lead to liver cirrhosis,fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. methods: a cross sectional study was designed comprising of 2800 serum samples of general population of balochistan. the samples were tested for anti-hcv antibodies by enzyme linked immunoassay (elisa) and for positive samples alanine aminotransferase (alt) levels were also evaluated. the results were statistically analyzed by using spss version 16.0. chi-square,fishers exact test was used to find the relationship between the various variables such as age group,gender and area. results: out of 2800 subjects 1872 (66.8%) male and 928 (32.2%) female were tested for anti-hcv antibodies. among 2800 subjects 196 (7.0%) were found positive for anti-hcv antibodies. association between anti-hcv antibodies for gender and area was also observed. there was no significant difference between genders by elisa. only anti-hcv antibodies with age group 41-50 years was significantly different at p-value (<0.05) by elisa. the highest alt (alanine aminotransferase) level mean value 77.3 iu/l was observed for the age group of 41-50 years. conclusions: in this study,it was aimed to determine the prevalence of anti-hcv antibodies in general population of balochistan,pakistan and concluded that the prevalence of anti-hcv infection is 7% in the studied population. we suggest routine tests of anti- hcv antibodies by elisa,which can help in reduction of hcv infection transmission.