Infection rate and spontaneous seroreversion of anti-hepatitis C virus during the natural course of hepatitis C virus infection in the general population

Abstract

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is common worldwide but there are different prevalence rates in different countries. Data on the incidence of HCV in the general population are scarce. Spontaneous viral clearance occurs in 10-25% of infected individuals after acute infection yet controversy exists regarding the frequency of spontaneous clearance during the natural course of HCV infection in the general population. Aims: Anti-HCV prevalence, HCV infection rate, and the kinetics of anti-HCV were studied in a cross section of the general population of central Italy. Study population and methods: Anti-HCV prevalence (EIA-3 Ortho, RIBA-3 Ortho Chiron) was estimated in 3884 randomly selected individuals. Infection rate and antibody kinetics were estimated in 2032 participants for whom a second blood sample was taken after a median follow up of seven years. HCV-RNA determination by polymerase chain reaction was performed on follow up sera. Results: The overall confirmed anti-HCV prevalence was 2.4%. Two participants seroconverted for anti-HCV, giving an overall infection rate of 1.4 cases per 10 000 person years (95% confidence interval 0.2-5.2 per 10 000 person years). Of the 36 individuals confirmed as anti-HCV positive at enrolment, seven (19.4%) showed complete seroreversion. Seven (87%) of the eight individuals with indeterminate results at enrolment were serologically non-reactive at the end of follow up. Of the 25 participants confirmed to be anti-HCV positive at both enrolment and follow up, 23 (92.0%) with stable serological profiles tested positive for HCV-RNA at the end of follow up. Conclusions: There is still a permanent risk, although low, of HCV spread in the general population in an area of low level endemicity. In this setting, a wide spectrum of modifications of viral and antibody patterns can be observed in HCV infected patients.

Frequent Recovery and Broad Genotype 2 Diversity Characterize Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Ghana, West Africa

“…In addition, several studies showed no significant relationship between HCV genotypes, replication properties, HCV clearance, and disease outcome (6,31,38,50). A higher rate of chronicity among patients infected with genotype 2c than with genotype 1b was recently reported (22). The high recovery rate and low viral load in HCV chronic infection observed in Ghanaian blood donors (Fig.…”

Recommendations on hepatitis C screening for adults

“…The proportion of confirmed active infections among positive screening test results varies widely across studies and test types. The proportion of RNA-positive, active HCV infection cases ranged from 0% to 89.7% among positive antibody-based assays [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][45][46][47][48][51][52][53][54] and from 0% to 100% among antigen-based assays. 39,44,49,50 Only three studies conducted confirmatory polymerase chain reaction on samples that tested negative for HCV antibody or antigen.…”

Occult Hepatitis C Virus Infection: Where are We Now?

“…The titer of anti-HCV antibodies decrease rapidly in recovered chronically HCV infected patients given interferon-based therapy (Maylin et al, 2009, Toyoda et al, 2005 and can sometimes completely disappear about two decades after HCV recovery (Takaki et al, 2000). Loss of anti-HCV antibodies can be observed in 6 to 20% of immunocompetent patients (Kondili et al, 2002, Lefrere et al, 2004 ). This IgG anti-HCV core test identifies occult HCV infections in seronegative, non-viremic patients and may be useful for tracking infections in patients who test negative for anti-HCV antibodies.…”