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Hepatitis C virus ( HCV) is a significant global health threat that is responsible for approximately 170 million chronic infections worldwide. A feasible research was conducted to provide more understanding of viral load, effectiveness of Harvoni drug on virus concentration, and distribution of virus genotypes in Iraqi patients. Ninety eight HCV cases were investigated in this research , including 52 untreated, with an average age ± SE of 45.26 ± 2.97 years, and 46 treated with Harvoni therapy, with an average age of 39.30 ± 3.90 years. In addition, eighty healthy persons with an average age of 29.40 ± 2.84 years were included as control. These cases were attending to the Special Nursing Home Hospital in Baghdad between December 2018 and January 2019. They were diagnosed with this disease by using a real-time PCR to concentrate the viral level and determine viral genotypes. Statistical analysis showed that high substantial variances in virus concentration between untreated and treated patients and between both groups versus apparently healthy volunteers group (p < 0.01). Furthermore, genotype 4 was shown to be higher in our sample of Iraqi hepatitis C patients in comparison with the other patterns.

A case–control study (80 patients with chronic hepatitis B virus [HBV] infection and 96 controls) was performed to evaluate the association of an IL12A gene variant (rs582537 A/C/G) with HBV infection. Allele G showed a significantly lower frequency in patients compared to controls (31.2 vs. 46.9%; probability [p] = 0.009; corrected p [pc] = 0.027) and was associated with a lower risk of HBV infection (odds ratio [OR] = 0.49; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.29–0.83). A similar lower risk was associated with genotypes CG (17.5 vs. 29.2; OR = 0.25; 95% CI = 0.08–0.81; p = 0.02) and GG (10.0 vs. 16.7; OR = 0.25; 95% CI = 0.07–0.91; p = 0.036), but the pc value was not significant (0.12 and 0.126, respectively). Serum IL-35 levels showed significant differences between individuals of different genotypes (p = 0.007). The highest median was associated with CA genotype (286.5 pg/mL), followed by genotypes CG (227.0 pg/mL), GG (206.5 pg/mL), CC (169.0 pg/mL), AA (137.5 pg/mL) and finally AG (125.0 pg/mL). In conclusion, rs582537 appears to be an important genetic variant that may influence not only susceptibility to HBV infection but IL-35 levels.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is one of the important challenges facing the world. The persistence or clearance of HBV is often determined by the host's immune responses. The current study was conducted during June-October 2018 on 80 patients with chronic HBV infection and 96 age-and gender-matched healthy controls. The results showed that most of the patients were males (62.5%) while females constituted 37.5%. The patients' serum was positive for anti-HBc IgG and HbsAG antibodies, while it was negative for anti-Hbc IgM antibodies. These findings were consistent with the interpretation of chronic HBV infection. Four liver function tests were performed, including alkaline phosphatase (ALP), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and total serum bilirubin (TSB). A significant increase in ALP, ALT, and AST levels was observed in HBV patients compared to healthy controls, while TSB showed no significant differences. However, in the receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, only ALP and AST occupied an excellent area under the curve, which was > 0.90.