engleski

Genotyping and detailed molecular analysis of hepatitis C virus in Croatia

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection remains a world health problem, with almost 80000 carriers in Croatia. Available data report HCV prevalence of 1.4% (range 0.8% - 2.5%) and genotypes 1b, 3a and 1a as the most common in Croatian population. None of the Croatian studies included sequence based genotyping and detailed molecular characterization of HCV genotypes and strains. Our preliminary results of the first HCV molecular study conducted in Croatia, confirmed genotype and subtype determination in 16 out of 18 analyzed samples, and showed 11% mismatched genotyping results for genotypes 1a and 1b. The recently established in-house method for more accurate genotyping and subtyping of samples based on HCV NS5B region amplification, sequencing and phylogenetic analysis, has been used on 114 samples from Croatian patients. The results were compared to standard diagnostic test INNO-LiPA1 and further on, to 5’NC region based genotyping. The obtained results confirmed genotype 1 and 3 as the most prevalent (58, 7% and 30%, respectively) and showed higher prevalence of genotype 4 (6, 1%) than previously reported. Detailed analysis of genotypes prevalence, distribution and analysis of HCV NS5B and 5’NC regions used for genotyping will be presented.

hepatitis C virus; NS5B; HCV genotype and subtype

nije evidentirano