[Sero-prevalence and associated risk factors on hepatitis C in Maqiao township, Henan province of China].

OBJECTIVE

To describe the prevalence and risk factors of hepatitis C virus (HCV) occurred in Henan province, at the end of 2011.

METHODS

Five villages round Maqiao township, including 5187 residents, were selected for the study. Five-milliliter-blood was drawn from every one of the interviewee. Clinical data including age, gender and anti-HCV antibody was recorded. Patients with positive antibodies against HCV were tested for HCV RNA.

RESULTS

A total number of 5187 people from five villages were studied, with age span from 1 to 97. The average age was 48 years and the sex ratio was 1:1.34. The anti-HCV result showed that the prevalence was 2.27%, with 1-9 age group the lowest (1.55%) and the ≥ 50 year-olds the highest (4.93%). Different villages seemed to have significant differences on the prevalence of HCV, with the highest as 8.68% and the lowest as 0.55%. Under risk factors analysis and distance-infection rates linear regression analysis, data showed that the prevalence might have correlated to the behavior of a certain family-run clinic.

RESULTS

from multivariate analysis indicated that factors as intravenous dropping, intravenous injection and the use of surgery/endoscope were associated with the HCV infection in this village.

CONCLUSION

Although the public health care system had been developed for more than ten years, iatrogenic infection was yet responsible for the infection of HCV patients in the rural areas of China that called for further attention paid to the system.