Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been identified as the major cause of chronic liver disease among patients on chronic hemodialysis (HD), despite the important reduction in risks obtained by testing candidate blood donors for anti-HCV antibodies and the use of recombinant erythropoietin to treat anemia. A cross-sectional study was performed to estimate the prevalence of HCV infection and g...

The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and distribution of HCV genotypes among voluntary blood donors in northern Thailand. From 1998 to 2000, 167 serum samples which tested positive for anti-HCV antibodies in the screening of voluntary blood donors from 5 provinces in northern Thailand were selected for genotyping. Viral RNA was extracted from the sera. The core-E1 region of...

background and aims: dna constructs containing hcv antigens have become one of the vaccine candidates for induction of anti-hcv cellular and humoral immunity. in this study, we constructed a novel expressing vector harboring a fusion sequence derived from an overlapping fragment in the middle of ns3 and a truncated core fragment to avoid troubles reported to be associated with full gene express...

We investigated the effects of water and ethyl acetate extracts of Citrus unshiu peel (Aurantii Nobilis pericarpium) on hepatitis C virus (HCV) absorption in MOLT-4 cells (a human lymphoblastoid leukemia cell line). By reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), we showed that both the ethyl acetate layer of Citrus unshiu peel extract and fraction 7 decreased HCV absorption in MOL...

The Abbott RealTime (RT) HCV assay targets the 5' untranslated region (UTR) of the HCV genome. Here, we analyzed the sequence variability of the assay target regions from 1,092 specimens. Thermodynamic modeling of the percentage of primers/probes bound at the assay annealing temperature was performed to assess the potential effect of sequence variability. An analysis of this large data set reve...

HCV can be classified into 6 major genotypes based on the phylogenetic analysis of the genomic sequences. The 3 major genotypes found in Thailand are 3, 1 and 6, respectively. In 2004, an epidemiological survey was carried out to evaluate the seroprevalence of HCV infections among populations aged 2-60 years in four provinces of Thailand, representing the North, Northeast, Center and South of t...

background and aims: hepatitis c virus (hcv) can cause hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc) in a significant proportion (≈ 20 %) of individuals with chronic hcv infection (chc). currently, chc is treated with peginterferon and ribavirin, which depending on genotype approximately 50 to 70% of patients are cured. the so-called “extrahepatic hcv infection” or viral replication in regions of the body oth...

Persistent infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major risk factor in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma. The elucidation of the pathogenesis of HCV-associated liver disease is hampered by the absence of an appropriate small animal model. Zebrafish exhibits high genetic homology to mammals, and is easily manipulated experimentally. In this study, we describe the use of a zebrafis...

Nosocomial transmission of HCV is a concern in haemodialysis (HD) units worldwide. Diagnosis of HCV infection among dialysis patients is currently based on the detection of anti HCV antibodies by ELISA, and is confirmed by HCV RNA. The average window period between HCV infection and seroconversion with new generations of HCV antibody tests remains approximately 70 days with more prolonged perio...

Background. Occult hepatitis C virus infection (OCI) was identified as a new form of Hepatitis C virus (HCV), characterized by undetectable HCV antibodies and HCV RNA in serum, while HCV RNA is detectable in liver and peripheral blood cells only. Aim. The aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence of OCI in Egyptian patients with lymphoproliferative disorders (LPDs) and to compare its ...