Comparison of risk factors among blood donors, volunteers and replacement individuals, infected or not by hepatitis C virus

Abstract

Hepatitis C is transmitted primarily parenterally by contaminated blood and is often associated with: intravenous drug abuse, invasive procedures, blood transfusions, acupuncture, tattooing, and alcohol and tobacco use. This study aimed to quantify and evaluate the risk factors among blood donors, volunteer blood donors and replacement individuals, infected or not by the C virus. The main transmission routes of C virus were identified in 55 men and 25 women (GI) monitored by the Ambulatory Unit of the Department of Tropical Diseases, Botucatu Medical School, and in 24 men and 26 women (GII), all active blood donors at the Bauru State Hospital Transfusional Agency. Both groups were similar in: tobacco and alcohol consumption, sexual behavior, tattooing and illicit drug use. The duration of alcohol and tobacco consumption and blood transfusions in GI were longer, whereas the option for steady partners, condom use, disposable materials and piercings were predominant in GII. In conclusion, the risk factors for hepatitis C demonstrate the necessity of health policies that act on the primary and secondary prevention levels (respectively, reduction of infection incidence and hepatopathy risk).

Prevalence and epidemiology of chronic hepatitis C among prisoners of Mato Grosso do Sul State, Brazil

“…The prevalence of anti-HCV was higher among older individuals, which was most probably due to risky behaviors throughout life, a fact observed in Campo Grande and in other incarcerated populations and groups of injecting drug users (11,37,40). The use of injecting drugs and tattooing was not significantly higher among blood donors with hepatitis C, probably due to the peculiarities of this population (42).…”

Transmission of Hepatitis B and C Virus Infection Through Body Piercing

“…Figure 1 shows the specific reasons for excluding those studies during each stage. Finally, 40 papers (10 for Hep-B, 14 , 15 , 19 – 26 26 for Hep-C, 13 , 16 , 27 – 50 4 for both Hep-B and Hep-C 51 – 54 ) from 18 countries were included in this systematic review (Fig. 1 ).…”

“…Besides the overall conclusion, there were several studies worthy of note, these studies can be clarified into 2 types, first, studies who got nonsignificant pooled risk estimations and unexpected results which indicating protective effect of body piercing, 20 , 23 , 51 for example, OR from Felippe 2009 is 0.29, which indicating significant protective effect of body piercing which may result from the control group contain most participants from larger cities with better health services which can lead to their safer body piercing procedure. 16 Urbanus 2011 provided OR = 0.43, it also discussed the reason behind this nonnormal result by stating that hygiene guideline supervising the procedure of body art was applied in that city, 23 making the effect of body piercing related less to the blood or body fluid transmitting diseases. Most of this kind of studies discussed the reasons behind, to sum up, participants in these studies are less like to represent the general population.…”

“…There are studies supporting the hypothesis with the conclusion body piercing can be an independent risk factor for transmitting hepatitis B and C virus. 13 , 14 Some studies, however, argue that the correlation between body piercing and HBV and HCV are not significant, 15 , 16 some even obtain an outcome indicating body piercing is a protective factor. 17 Based on these inconsistence, the current systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted aiming to summarize and critically analyze related information to detect the risk of body piercing on transmission of HBV and HCV, furthermore, make evidenced recommendations to the public and health supervision departments about the future programs for preventing and controlling the infection of HBV and HCV.…”