Molecule Epidemiology Of Hepatitis C Virus In A Village Of Fujian Province

Objectives: To investigate the epidemiology characteristic of HCV infection in a coast village of Fujian province and the related risk factors with HCV infection and possible transmission route.Methods: A community based epidemiology survey was taken and serum sample was collected to detect of HCV-Ab and HBsAg at the same time.Then amplified part of HCV NS5B gene of seropositive serum by RT-PCR. Phylogeny tree was constructed base on the sequenced result and reference arraies from Genebank to genetyped the HCV gene of sequenced positive serum and describe the gene sequence homology between varied seropositive serum.Results: We investigated and colloceted 1009 serum sample from 1351 people of the village.The seropositivity rate of HCV-Ab is 28.15%. There is no significance in seropositivity rate between sex( 25.22% vs. 30.56%).It grow with age increase,it was the lowest in age of younger than 10 years old group (2.14%) and highest in 50～60 years group56.70%, there is a significance diffenence between them. The rate was 3.35% in unmarried versus 43.64% in married (P <0.001). Living with a seropositive family member get a higher positive rate of HCV-Ab than no identified seropositive family member(34.36% vs. 20.70%, P <0.001,OR=2.01). Farther more living with a seropositive spouse get a positive rate of 69.18%(110/159). Multiple factor logistic regression analysis revealed that age ,living with seropositive family member and tooth extraction are independent risk factors of infection HCV. The genetype of the sample is 1b 88.89%(96/108)and 2a 11.11%(12/108),no any other subtype be found. It is high gene homology between the varied sequenced positive samples and also compared with mainland of China,Taiwan and Japan popular strain.Conclusions: The seropositivity rate of HCV-Ab in the coast village of Fujian province is 28.15%. Most subgenetype of the HCV is 1b and 2a and there are highly gene homology between them . Age and living with seropositive family member are independent risk factors of infected with HCV.But the route of HCV transmission could not been certainty and farther research are needed. Standard antiviral therapy for the people with sequenced positive may be needed in order to control farther diffusion of HCV in the village around for the background of there is no effective vaccine for HCV.