Prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection among multitransfused thalassemic children in Basrah-Iraq

Abstract EN

Between November 1998 and May 1999 a prospective study for HCV antibodies was conducted on 200 patients (113 males and 87 females), with B-thalassemia major and sickle cell-thalassemia, who were attending the thalassemia center at Basrah Maternity and Children Hospital.

Their ages ranged from 1-18 years with a mean age of 9 years.

Nineteen patients (9.5 %) were found to have antibod¬ies in comparison to only one (0.5 %) amongst the 200 chil¬dren of a control group.

The risk of exposure to HCV was higher than for HBs antigen and HIV amongst the same patients.

Anti-HCV seropositivity was significantly higher amongst patients with B-thalassemia major than patients with sickle cell-thalassemia and patients older than 10 years.

The study showed also that anti-HCVseropositivity was directly related to the f requency of blood transfusion and there were significant elevations of serum bilirubin and aminotransferase levels amongst seropositive thalassemic patients compared to seronegative patients.