Prevalence and genotypes of GBV‐C and its associations with HIV infection among persons who inject drugs in Eastern Europe

Abstract

We aimed to determine the rate of GBV-C viremia, seropositivity, and genotypes among people who inject drugs (PWID) and healthy volunteers in Estonia and to evaluate associations between GBV-C and sociodemographic factors, intravenous drug use, co-infections. The study included 345 Caucasian PWID and 118 healthy volunteers. The presence of GBV-C RNA (viremia) was determined by reverse transcriptase-nested PCR in 5' long terminal repeat. PCR products were sequenced and genotyped by phylogenetic analysis. GBV-C seropositivity was determined by ELISA. One third of PWID (114/345) and 6% (7/118) of healthy volunteers (OR = 7.8, 95% CI = 3.5-20.5, P < 0.001) were GBV-C viremic. In PWID group, 79% of sequences belonged to subtype 2a, 19% to subtype 2b, and two remained unclassified. In healthy volunteers, six out of seven sequences belonged to subtype 2a and one to subtype 2b. We found HIV+ PWID to have two times increased odds of being GBV-C viremic compared to HIV- PWID (62% vs. 38%; OR = 2.13, 95% CI = 1.34-3.36, P = 0.001). In addition, odds of being GBV-C viremic decreased with increasing age (OR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.90-0.98, P = 0.001). HIV positivity remained associated with GBV-C viremia in multivariate analysis after adjustment for age (OR = 2.23, 95% CI = 1.39-3.58, P = 0.001). GBV-C seropositivity was similar among PWID and healthy volunteers (2.3% vs. 1.7%, respectively; OR = 1.4, 95% CI =0.3-13.5, P = 1). In an Eastern European country we demonstrated that GBV-C viremia is common among PWID, but uncommon among healthy volunteers, and GBV-C seropositivity is infrequent among both groups. Similarly to other European countries and USA, GBV-C 2a is the most common genotype in Estonia. J. Med. Virol. 89:632-638, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Human pegivirus‐1 infection in kidney transplant recipients: A single‐center experience

“…HPgV‐1 is transmitted through parenteral, sexual, and perinatal routes. Worldwide, ~750 million people are actively infected and HPgV‐1 viremia in blood donors from developed countries varies from 1% to 5%, whereas is higher in the same populational group in developing countries (up to 20%) 9,10 . Due to shared modes of transmission, HPgV‐1 viremia is highly prevalent in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)‐ and hepatitis C virus (HCV)‐infected or parenterally exposed individuals, as hemodialysis patients or organ transplantation receptors 11 .…”

Human pegivirus isolates characterized by deep sequencing from hepatitis C virus‐RNA and human immunodeficiency virus‐RNA–positive blood donations, France

“…[1][2][3] Recent taxonomic evolutions and proposals related to these single-stranded RNA viruses allow the current description of 11 species within the genus Pegivirus (Pegivirus A-K), the human and nonhuman primate pegivirus isolates being assigned to species Pegivirus C. 4 Despite a nonnegligible blood prevalence in healthy persons, that is 1% to 5% in developed countries and up to 20% in developing countries, and higher values in immunocompromised patients, both natural history and potential implication of pegiviruses in host's health are largely unknown despite their identification more than 20 years ago. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Of note, however, human immunodeficiency (HIV)-HPgV association studies were extensively explored, due to a possible beneficial effect in HIV infection motivating investigations about HIV-HPgV interactions at the molecular level. [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] Mechanisms of viral persistence and host-immune modulation remain also poorly characterized.…”

Low prevalence of human pegivirus 1 (HPgV-1) in HTLV-1 carriers from Belém, Pará, North Region of Brazil

“…individuals with HIV due to their immunocompromised defenses. Thus, a delayed viral clearance associated with a similar method of transmission was indicated by some authors as a contributing factor for a higher prevalence of HPgV-1 in people living with HIV/AIDS [28][29][30].…”