Lack of Knowledge About Hepatitis C Infection Rates Among Patients With Inherited Coagulation Disorders in Countries Under the Eastern Mediterranean Region Office of WHO (EMRO): A Meta-Analysis

Context: hepatitis c virus (hcv) infection is a public health problem. hcv alone is responsible for 90% cases of acute hepatitis among multiply transfused patients who are at risk of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc). objectives: to provide a clear picture of available data, we performed a systematic review of the epidemiological characteristics of hcv infection among patients with in- herited coagulation disorders in the countries under the eastern mediterranean region office (emro). evidence acquisition: meta-analysis was carried out on the basis of results of electronic and manual search. this analysis included studies in english, french, and persian that met with the following criteria: (1) appropriate study design: cross-sectional, case-con- trol, and cohort; (2) studies reporting hcv prevalence according to enzyme immune assay; (3) studies in which the sample population was enrolled from emro countries. according to the results of the heterogeneity tests, we used fixed-effect/random-effect model for our meta-analysis, with the “metan” command. results: we included 30 studies, most of which were from iran. the mean age of the subjects ranged from 13 to 27.1 years. the majority of the patients were male (range, 81% to 100%). the pooled estimate of hcv infection among patients with inherited coagula- tion disorders was 48.07% (95% confidence interval [ci], range: 27.39–55.68) in iran, 36.03% (95% ci, range: 4.466–67.598) in pakistan, and 48.27% (95% ci, range: 36.12–60.43) in all the emro countries taken together. conclusions: in iran and other emro countries, the hcv infection rate among patients with inherited coagulation disorders is high. our study shows that there is a lack of knowledge about infections in such patients in most of the emro countries. it is the responsibility of health-policy makers to address this knowledge gap and provide safe and adequate treatment for patients in high-risk groups.