Low prevalence of antibody to hepatitis C virus in North East England

Abstract

The prevalence of antibodies to hepatitis C virus (anti‐HCV) was studied in North East England in blood donors, local multiply transfused patients, local high risk individuals, and chronic liver disease patients. Anti‐HCV was detected by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in 2/1120 (0.18%) blood donors; 1/84 chronic renal failure patients on haemodialysis who had received 1,992 units of blood (seroconversion rate of 0.05% per unit transfused), 1/207 cardiac patients 6 months post cardiac surgery transfused with 1,403 units of blood (1 anti‐HCV pre‐operatively, seroconversion rate 0.07%), 40/50 haemophilia A patients treated with commercial factor VIII, and 38/100 intravenous drug users. In addition anti‐HCV was detected by ELISA in 5/35 cryptogenic chronic liver disease patients, 5/5 confirmed by recombinant immunoblot assay (RIBA) (14%); 3/30 patients with autoimmune chronic active hepatitis, 2/3 by RIBA (7%); 2/50 primary biliary cirrhosis patients, 1/2 by RIBA (2%); 0/30 alcoholic cirrhosis patients; and 2/9 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, 1/2 by RIBA (11%). HCV is uncommon in North East England; it may be implicated in the aetiology of a minority of cases of cryptogenic liver disease and <5% of autoimmune chronic active hepatitis and primary biliary cirrhosis.