risk factors and seroprevalence of hepatitis c among patients hospitalized at mulago hospital, uganda丙型肝炎的危险因素和seroprevalence姆拉戈医院病人住院,乌干达.pdf

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Tropical Medicine Volume 2011, Article ID 598341, 6 pages doi:10.1155/2011/598341 Clinical Study Risk Factors and Seroprevalence of Hepatitis C among Patients Hospitalized at Mulago Hospital, Uganda J. I. O’Reilly,1 P. Ocama,2 C. K. Opio,2 A. Alfred,2 E. Paintsil,1 E. Seremba,2 and A. N. Sofair1 1 Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA 2 Makerere University Medical School, Kampala, Uganda Correspondence should be addressed to J. I. O’Reilly, john.i.oreilly@ Received 5 April 2011; Accepted 21 June 2011 Academic Editor: Thomas R. Unnasch Copyright © 2011 J. I. O’Reilly et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The emergence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) and its associated sequelae in Africa is a cause for significant concern. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive patients are at an increased risk of contracting HCV infection due to similar risk factors and modes of transmission. We investigated the seroprevalence of hepatitis C in hospitalized HIV-positive and HIV-negative patients in Mulago Hospital, an academic hospital in Uganda. Blood samples were first tested for HCV antibodies, and positive tests were confirmed with HCV RNA PCR. We enrolled five hundred patients, half HIV-positive and half HIV negative. Overall, 13/500 patients (2.6%) tested positive for HCV antibodies. There was no difference in HCV antibody detection among HIV- positive and HIV-negative patients. Out of all risk factors examined, only an age greater than 50 years was associated with HCV infection. Traditional risk factors for co