Professional paper
SEROLOGICAL DIAGNOSIS OF HEPATITIS C VIRAL INFECTION - SITUATION IN PRIMORSKO-GORANSKA COUNTY
Brigita Tićac
; Department of Public health, Primorsko-goranska County, Rijeka, Croatia
Tomislav Rukavina
; Department of microbiology and parasitology, School of medicine, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia
Abstract
ABSTRACT
Hepatitis C is today one of the most important public health problems in the world. The major problem connected with hepatitis C virus infection is the fact that more than 80% of infected persons will develop chronic infection lasting for decades. The prevalence of hepatitis C virus infections varies in different parts of the world. A great proportion of chronic infections will result with the development serious complications such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The prevalence of hepatitis C is different in differant parts of the world. The estimated prevalence for Croatia is about 1% and there are no available data regarding prevalence for Primorsko-Goranska County.
Presented paper represents the results of retrospective analysis of serological tests for hepatitis C virus (HCV) performed in the Laboratory for Serodiagnosis of Teaching Institute of Public Health of Primorsko-Goranska County during 2006 and first five months of 2007. Overall 4785 sera of patients from Primorsko-Goranska County were analysed with positive anti-HCV results found in sera from 174 patients. Positive anti-HCV results were distributed almost equaly among female and male patients. Analysis of age distribution revealed that most of positive anti-HCV patients belong to the age group between 21 and 30 years (44%), followed by the age group between 31 and 40 years with 19% of all anti-HCV positive patients.
Keywords
hepatitis C virus (HCV); serological diagnosis; anti-HCV EIA; sex and age distribution
Hrčak ID:
22564
URI
Publication date:
25.6.2007.
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