Hepatitis C virus prevalence and incidence estimates among Chinese blood donors

Abstract

were screened in parallel by two different enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays for anti-HIV 1/2, hepatitis B surface antigen, anti-HCV, and syphilis. Screeningreactive samples were further confirmed by western blot. Confirmatory positive rates among first-time and repeat donors were used to estimate the prevalence and incidence rates. Multivariable logistic regression modeling was used to examine factors associated with HCV infection. RESULTS:A total of 1,276,544 donations were collected from five Chinese blood centers, of which an estimated 1203 were confirmed HCV positive. The overall HCV prevalence among first-time donors was 166.56 per 100,000 donors (95% confidence interval, 156.04-177.08). The HCV incidence rate was estimated to be 15.21 (95% confidence interval, 11.83-19.56) per 100,000 person-years among repeat donors. Multivariable logistic regression results showed that increased age, lower educational levels, ethnicity, and occupation were all important factors associated with HCV confirmatory status among first-time donors (p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: HCV infection is still an importantconcern for transfusion safety in China. Our findings indicate that continued strong efforts are needed to monitor and control the risk of transfusion-transmitted HCV infection in China. Moreover, to reduce unnecessary donor loss, HCV donor screening procedures should be improved by incorporating confirmatory testing into routine blood center operations. From the

Prevalence and characteristics of hepatitis C virus infection in Shenyang City, Northeast China, and prediction of HCV RNA positivity according to serum anti-HCV level: retrospective review of hospital data

“…Here, we showed a significant difference in the serum anti-HCV-positive rate among different age groups, which increased with increasing age and was significantly higher in patients older than 40 years than in those below 40 years old. This result is consistent with previous studies [18,27,28] indicating that the infection rate of HCV in younger people is reducing, which is attributed to the increasingly more strict and standardized inspection and management of blood and blood products [29]. Moreover, there was an interaction between age and sex in that there was no sex difference in anti-HCVpositive prevalence among patients younger than 20 years, whereas males had a higher prevalence in patients older than 20 years.…”

Chronic Viral Hepatitis in a Cohort of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients from Southern Italy: A Case-Control Study

“…On the other hand, our analysis demonstrated that only an advanced age was independently associated to increased risk of CHB/CHC (OR = 1.05); it is possible that surgery performed before the diffusion of presurgical hepatitis screening could explain this result, and the fact that CHC were more common in subjects operated before 1990 could be a confirmatory finding. Indeed, the introduction of the HBV vaccine and HCV routine detection allowed an improvement in the prevention measures against viral hepatitis transmission during surgery or blood donation, thus reducing the risk of infection in young generations [ 18 ]. As expected, vaccinated patients were younger than non-vaccinated ones, and this may be another possible explanation of our result.…”

Feasibility of Hepatitis C Elimination in China: From Epidemiology, Natural History, and Intervention Perspectives

“…Blood transmission is another major route of HCV infection, with a prevalence of 166.56 per 100,000 among first-time blood donors and 15.21 per 100,000 among regular blood donors ( Fu et al, 2019 ). The prevalence of hepatitis C in hemodialysis patients was approximately 10%, which is higher than the general population ( Jadoul et al, 2019 ).…”