Department of Psychiatry, PGIMER, Chandigarh, India.
J Neuroimmune Pharmacol. 2010 Dec;5(4):496-506. doi: 10.1007/s11481-010-9227-6. Epub 2010 Jun 19.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection can have devastating long-term sequelae. It is very common in injecting drug users (IDU) worldwide. India has a huge number of substance abusers, with an estimated 1.1 million IDU. Research on HCV prevalence in IDU and especially other substance use is sparse. This review identified 15 such studies. Some of these also studied prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections and co-infection rates. The summary findings indicate that there are pockets of very high HCV seroprevalence (60-90%), otherwise the range is moderate (30-50%), though, in real terms, it still indicates the appreciable magnitude of the problem that may emerge as an epidemic if it goes unheeded. HCV infection seems to be more common in IDU than HBV and HIV infections, again pointing toward the urgent need to prioritise this area. Co-infection rates are low in most of the few studies available, but clearly more studies are needed. There is a glaring paucity of studies on risk behaviours that can be linked meaningfully to HCV infection and its consequences. The urgent future research needs in this important area are highlighted.
丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）感染可能会造成严重的长期后果。在全球范围内，注射吸毒者（IDU）中 HCV 感染非常普遍。印度有大量的药物滥用者，估计有 110 万 IDU。关于 IDU 中 HCV 流行率的研究，特别是其他物质使用情况的研究很少。本综述确定了 15 项此类研究。其中一些研究还研究了乙型肝炎病毒（HBV）和人类免疫缺陷病毒（HIV）感染以及合并感染率。总结结果表明，存在一些 HCV 血清流行率非常高（60-90%）的地区，否则范围适中（30-50%），但实际上，这仍然表明，如果不加以重视，该问题可能会成为一种流行疾病，其规模相当可观。HCV 感染似乎比 HBV 和 HIV 感染更为常见，这再次表明迫切需要优先考虑这一领域。在少数现有研究中，合并感染率较低，但显然需要进行更多的研究。关于可与 HCV 感染及其后果有意义关联的风险行为的研究非常少。强调了在这一重要领域的迫切未来研究需求。
