Prevalence of GBV-C/Hepatitis G Virus Viremia and Anti-E2 in Canadian Blood Donors

Abstract

Background and Objectives: GB virus C (GBV-C)/hepatitis G virus (HGV) is a recently recognized parenterally and sexually transmitted agent. The prevalence of GBV-C/HGV markers in Canadian blood donors has not been previously studied and was therefore determined. Materials and Methods: Blood donors [identity unlinked (IU), short-term temporarily deferred (STTD) and autologous groups] and donor samples with antibodies to hepatitis C (anti-HCV) or hepatitis B core were tested for GBV-C/HGV RNA and for antibodies to E2 antigen (anti-E2). Results: GBV-C/HGV RNA was found in 1.1% and anti-E2 in 7.3% of the combined IU/STTD donor group. Viremia was much more common in anti-HCV-positive samples (12.5%); anti-E2 was present in >50% of this group. In the STTD group, female gender was significantly associated with viremia. Conclusion: GBV-C/HGV infection is relatively common in Canadian donors, and a small proportion are viremic. The association of female gender and viremia was unexpected. Further study is needed to clarify the epidemiology and natural history of GBV-C/HGV infection.

Global prevalence of human pegivirus‐1 in healthy volunteer blood donors: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…In 6 studies , the samples did not include blood donors, 2 studies were carried out on commercial blood donors, and the remaining 3 did not use molecular tests for detecting HPgV‐1. We ended up including 79 studies in the systematic review . The Supplementary content table presents the characteristics of included studies.…”

“…The prevalence rates were reported from a wide range of countries spanning all continents. Five studies reported data from North America, 11 from South America, 21 from Europe, 33 from Asia, 5 from Africa, 2 from Australia, and 1 from both North America and Europe (we did not pool this study for results based on continent of origin). Demographic data were not consistently reported across studies, and we were not able to perform subgroup analyses based on age or gender.…”

“…Also, 7 studies had a minor number of donors who were seropositive for HBV/HCV, and one study had some donors with raised ALT (alanine aminotransferase) levels , but we could no separate their data from the overall results published in the study. Therefore, we decided to exclude these 16 articles from the meta‐analysis leaving us with a total of 63 studies for the quantitative research. It is noteworthy that the 16 excluded articles included the 11 high risk of bias studies found in our methodological review.…”

“…Nineteen studies also reported the prevalence of antibodies to envelope protein (anti‐E2) of HPgV‐1 in their donor samples. We pooled the results of these to obtain an overall estimate.…”

Deep Sequencing for the Detection of Virus-Like Sequences in the Brains of Patients with Multiple Sclerosis: Detection of GBV-C in Human Brain

“…[38] GBV-C is, in part, sexually transmitted. [39,40,41] The sex predominance of GBV-C infection is about 2:1 women:men, again similar to MS. [42] The presence of both positive (RNA genome) and negative (replication intermediate) strand flaviviral RNA in MS-6 suggests that the virus was actively replicating in the brain of this subject. Active replication is also supported by this subject's pathology report showing ''active plaques'' with a perivascular lymphocytic infiltrate (data not shown).…”