Hepatitis C epidemiology in the central area of Portugal. Prevalence of anti-HCV in the population of the district of Coimbra.

• Autor(a) principal: Santos, A
• Data de Publicação: 1993
• Outros Autores: Carvalho, A, Bento, D, Sá, R, Tomaz, J, Rodrigues, V, Pais, L, Porto, A
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://www.actamedicaportuguesa.com/revista/index.php/amp/article/view/3172

Anti-hepatitis C virus antibody (anti-HCV) screening was performed in a sample of the adult population of the Coimbra District. 657 persons were included (267 male and 390 female, mean age of 42.7 +/- 13.1 years), aleatorily chosen from four characteristic councils. Anti-HCV was detected using an ELISA-2 test and all positive sera were also tested with RIBA-2. General prevalence of anti-HCV was 0.46%. All positive patients live in urban areas and presented risk factors for HCV infection. Anti-HCV was found in 33.3% of intravenous drug abusers, in 1.8% of transfused individuals, in 1.33% of alcoholics (higher than 80 g/d alcohol ingestion), in 1% of cases with history of surgical operations, and in 0.65% of persons who lived in risk regions for hepatitis B. We conclude that anti-HCV prevalence is low in our region. We think it is important to perform other studies in larger samples of general population and to study risk groups.