Seroprevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in general population of Henan province

Objective To examine the prevalence of hepatitis C virus(HCV) infection in general population of Henan province and to explore the significance of combined application of multiple laboratory detection methods for diagnosis of HCV infection.Methods Using multistage random sampling,a survey including questionnaire interview and laboratory detection was conducted among residents of 1-75 years old in 18 municipalities of Henan province from April to July 2012.Venous blood samples of the participants were collected and detected for HCV using a variety of reagents.Results Among the 32 203 participants,the positive rate for serum HCV antibody and RNA were 0.64% and 0.35%,respectively.There was a significant difference in the results of Western blot supplementation trial between two sets of samples with the sample/cut-off(S/CO) values of ≥1 and<3.8 and the S/CO values of ≥3.8 and<10 in antibody screening (χ²=11.23,P<0.01);in addition,there was a significant difference in HCV RNA positive rate between the two sets of samples with the S/CO values of ≥1 and <10 and the S/CO values of ≥10 and <18.3 in antibody screening(χ²=71.84,P<0.001).Conclusion HCV infection was at a low level among general population in Henan province in 2012.The study results indicate that a supplementary experiment should be conducted after the screening for HCV antibody detection and nucleic acid testing for the accurate diagnosis of HCV infection.