PMID: 7522025Jul 1, 1994Paper

Epidemiology of hepatitis C virus in Europe

FEMS Microbiology Reviews
F Degos

Abstract

Epidemiology of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in Europe is changing very rapidly since the main source of contamination was blood transfusion and the use of surrogate markers allowed to diminish dramatically the number of patients contaminated through HCV post transfusion hepatitis. The recent description of several genotypes with different distributions over Europe and different pathogenicity will allow to explain various evolutive aspects of the disease. At present, groups at risk are drug addicts (70%), hemophiliacs (contaminated with blood products before 1985), hemodialysis patients (20%) and patients with cirrhosis with or without hepatocellular carcinoma. The detection of HCV markers prior to blood transfusion allowed to detect asymptomatic carriers of HCV, some of them with latent chronic hepatitis which can be predicted by the detection of HCV RNA in the serum. Vertical and sexual transmission are rare but possible events observed with certainty in patients co-infected with HIV and controversial in other situations.

Citations

Jan 1, 1995·Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy = Biomédecine & Pharmacothérapie·G Mathé
Jun 1, 1995·Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine·A Trottier, J Brown
Apr 3, 2001·Clinical Infectious Diseases : an Official Publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America·P CacoubUNKNOWN Joint Study Group on Hepatitis C Virus of the French National Society of Internal Medicine and the French Society of Infecti
Jun 1, 1996·Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health·S C ThompsonN Crofts
Aug 21, 2007·Lancet·Young Kwang Chae, Jeong Hyun Yun
Jun 18, 2011·Liver International : Official Journal of the International Association for the Study of the Liver·William SievertFrancesco Negro

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