PATTERN OF HCV GENOTYPES PREVALENCE IN DIFFERENT DISTRICTS OF PUNJAB, PAKISTAN
Loading...
Date
2017
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of management and Technology
Abstract
Hepatitis C is generally defined as a disease in which the inflammation of liver takes place.
This situation is caused by RNA virus of the family Flaviviridae. It's a worldwide problem
and in Pakistanits ratio is 4% in general population. The problem of Hepatitis is also
considered as one of the major problems by WHO.
During 1980s the hepatitis were known to be a A or B but soon after the discovery of Hepatitis
C takes place in 1989 at CDC and the experiments was done on the sera of chimpanzee. After
that several patients were diagnosed for that virus which is NANB in nature.
Till date there are no vaccines discovered for Hepatitis C hence the disease progression in
some areas and some groups of people are high. On the other hand the available drugs for this
disease are either costly or not that much efficient, generally a combination of interferon and
ribavirin are given to the patients suffering from that virus. Recently a newly a newly
discovered drug DAA show a high efficiency in order to cure the disease and to improve SVR.
That is also proved by a case study from our patients.
Hence hepatitis is blood borne disease so there are some groups who have risk to get infected
that include barbers, dentists, sex workers, drug users, piercing of nose ear etc. Some
evidences of transfusion through house hold contact also be witnessed.
If not diagnosed and treated on time this viral infection can be lethal and may cause liver
cirrhosis that can cause to death of person. At acute or minor phase if diagnosed this can be
easily curable with no side effects. Some individuals show no physical signs of Hepatitis
infection while some show dizziness, loss in appetite, loss in weight and change in mood.
Hepatitis C is a virus that keeps on mutating and due to its nature there are several types and
subtypes of HCV. There are some methods that can predict the type of HCV , but the most
xv
exact and widely used method is typing through nested PCR. This technique involves the
extraction and amplification of RNA from serum of infected individual and then amplifying it
with type specific primers which is then observed under U.V lite. The specific type give
specific position band which is then compared with key to predict results of specific type of
HCV.
The prevalence of different genotypes is different in different parts of the world. In Pakistan
the most prevalent genotype is 3a followed by 1a and that is also proved by our study , in our
study we include 8864 patients out of which 7161(80.77%) were 3a. That pattern of
dominancy over other subtypes in Pakistanis also supported by several studies.
Description
Supervised By: Dr.Muhammad Sohail Afzal
Keywords
Hepatitis C,Inflammation of liver, Combination of interferon, MS