Pybus O G, Drummond A J, Nakano T, Robertson B H, Rambaut A
Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Mol Biol Evol. 2003 Mar;20(3):381-7. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msg043.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a leading cause of liver cancer and cirrhosis, and Egypt has possibly the highest HCV prevalence worldwide. In this article we use a newly developed Bayesian inference framework to estimate the transmission dynamics of HCV in Egypt from sampled viral gene sequences, and to predict the public health impact of the virus. Our results indicate that the effective number of HCV infections in Egypt underwent rapid exponential growth between 1930 and 1955. The timing and speed of this spread provides quantitative genetic evidence that the Egyptian HCV epidemic was initiated and propagated by extensive antischistosomiasis injection campaigns. Although our results show that HCV transmission has since decreased, we conclude that HCV is likely to remain prevalent in Egypt for several decades. Our combined population genetic and epidemiological analysis provides detailed estimates of historical changes in Egyptian HCV prevalence. Because our results are consistent with a demographic scenario specified a priori, they also provide an objective test of inference methods based on the coalescent process.
丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）是导致肝癌和肝硬化的主要原因，埃及可能是全球丙型肝炎病毒感染率最高的国家。在本文中，我们使用一种新开发的贝叶斯推理框架，从采样的病毒基因序列估计埃及丙型肝炎病毒的传播动态，并预测该病毒对公共卫生的影响。我们的结果表明，埃及丙型肝炎病毒感染的有效数量在1930年至1955年间经历了快速指数增长。这种传播的时间和速度提供了定量的遗传证据，表明埃及丙型肝炎病毒疫情是由广泛的抗血吸虫病注射运动引发和传播的。尽管我们的结果表明此后丙型肝炎病毒传播有所下降，但我们得出结论，丙型肝炎病毒可能会在埃及持续流行数十年。我们结合群体遗传学和流行病学分析，对埃及丙型肝炎病毒感染率的历史变化进行了详细估计。由于我们的结果与先验指定的人口统计学情景一致，它们也为基于合并过程的推理方法提供了客观检验。
