Introduction: Over the years HCV infection has proved to be one of the leading causes of public health issue as a result of high morbidity and mortality rate worldwide. Hence prevention or early detection has proved to be of great use to tackle the disease. Since the introduction of rapid screening assays, they have been used widely worldwide. Hence this study was conducted to compare rapid ICT test with ELISA for the effective detection of anti-HCV antibodies in patients on haemodialysis (HD). Material and methods: A total of 109 HD patients suffering from chronic kidney disease were recruited. This study was conducted from July 2019 to March 2022. Sera of all the patients was tested for anti HCV antibodies by rapid ICT and further tested by ELISA. Results: In our study results obtained show that the seroprevalence of anti-HCV was 26.6% i.e. 29 patients via rapid ICT and 35.8% i.e. 39 patients via ELISA depicting a signicant difference of sensitivity and specicity of ELISA over ICT testing. Conclusion: The results indicated that the rapid ICTkits for HCV have a limited efciency and should be backed by superior supplemental methods like ELISAand PCR where possible.

No abstract

Introduction: Hepatitis C virus infection in one of the blood borne infections that patients on maintenance hemodialysis acquire during the course of hemodialysis. The patients on hemodialysis develop viral hepatitis and also there is no vaccine for HCV, therefore it becomes crucial to early diagnose and start anti-viral therapy among these patients. Methods:All patients were tested for anti-HCV antibody by using Merilisa HCV ELISAkit Results: In this study a total of 109 patients were recruited. Out of 109, 64(58.7%) were males and 45(41.3%) were females. Majority of the patients 42(38.5%) were in 41-60 years age group. A total of 35.8% patients were tested positive for anti-HCV antibody by ELISA. Among seropositive patients highest positivity (53.8%) was found among 41-60 years age group. Conclusion: HCV positivity was found to be associated with duration of dialysis. Majority of the HCV positive patients belonged to 41-60 years age group.