Affiliations 

  • 1 Institute of Public Health
  • 2 Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin
  • 3 University of the Punjab
  • 4 PAEC General Hospital
MyJurnal

Abstract

This study was aimed to find out the prevalence of HCV infection and frequency of its genotypes in the
population of the Karol war village i.e. situated in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. It was a descriptive crosssectional study model. Tests were performed in the Department of Bacteriology, Institute of Public
Health Lahore, Pakistan. Cases positive for Anti-HCV antibodies by chemiluminescence assay were
subjected to HCV RNA detection by PCR. Genotyping was done by Geno-Sen’s HCV Genotyping
1/2/3/4 Real Time PCR kit for Rotor Gene. A total of 396 patients were enrolled for this study. The
incidence of positive HBSAg and HCV cases were 11.86% and 1.5% respectively. Males were more
affected with 61.7% (n=29) while positive cases in females were 38.3% (n=18). Age group of 31-45
years had higher infection rate among other ages (n=20). The frequency of genotypes 3, 1 and 2 was
36, 4 and 3 respectively while the genotype of 4 patients was found to be indeterminate. Genotype 3 is
the most prevalent genotype in the studied individuals which corresponds to the local data available so
far however 11.86 % positivity figure is quite alarming figure for that area.