Research Paper

Evaluation Frequency of occult Hepatitis C virus infection in patients with Human Immunodeficiency virus infection, Kerman; Iran

  Abstract :

Occult hepatitis C virus infection is a pathological form of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Co-infection human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and HCV make sever hepatic damage. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of occult HCV in Iranian patients with HIV infection. In a cross-sectional study, from Jan 2016 to Jun 2017, 100 Iranian patients with HIV infection were enrolled in this study. After extraction of viral RNA from the plasma and PBMC samples, HCV RNA and HCV genotypes were detected by commercial Real Time PCR kit. Out of the one hundred patients, 22 patients (22%) had co-infection HIV/ HCV infection, nine samples (40.9%) were occult HCV and 13 samples (59.1%) were acute HCV. Genotype 3a in patients with occult HCV and 1a in patients with acute HCV were more abundant. Also, the mean level of liver enzymes in patients with occult HCV higher than that of acute HCV. The study demonstrated that testing only for HCV antibody fails to identify the true prevalence of HCV co-infection among HIV infected patients, also; results revealed the occurrence of occult HCV infection in HIV infected patients. Therefore, it seems that, analysis of Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells(PBMCs) for HCV-RNA would be informative for detection of occult HCV.

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