Laboratory of Clinical and Epidemiological Virology, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research, KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK.
Viruses. 2023 Dec 8;15(12):2391. doi: 10.3390/v15122391.
The hepatitis C virus (HCV) epidemic in Western countries is primarily perpetuated by the sub-populations of men who have sex with men (MSM) and people who inject drugs (PWID). Understanding the dynamics of transmission in these communities is crucial for removing the remaining hurdles towards HCV elimination. We sequenced 269 annotated HCV plasma samples using probe enrichment and next-generation sequencing, obtaining 224 open reading frames of HCV (OR497849-OR498072). Maximum likelihood phylogenies were generated on the four most prevalent subtypes in this study (HCV1a, 1b, 3a, 4d) with a subsequent transmission cluster analysis. The highest rate of clustering was observed for HCV4d samples (13/17 (76.47%)). The second highest rate of clustering was observed in HCV1a samples (42/78 (53.85%)) with significant association with HIV-positive MSM. HCV1b and HCV3a had very low rates of clustering (2/83 (2.41%) and (0/29)). The spread of the prevalent subtype HCV1b appears to have been largely curtailed, and we demonstrate the onwards transmission of HCV1a and HCV4d in the HIV-positive MSM population across municipal borders. More systematic data collection and sequencing is needed to allow a better understanding of the HCV transmission among the community of PWID and overcome the remaining barriers for HCV elimination in Belgium.
西方国家的丙型肝炎病毒 (HCV) 流行主要是由男男性行为者 (MSM) 和注射毒品者 (PWID) 亚群维持的。了解这些社区中的传播动态对于消除 HCV 消除的剩余障碍至关重要。我们使用探针富集和下一代测序对 269 个注释 HCV 血浆样本进行了测序，获得了 HCV（OR497849-OR498072）的 224 个开放阅读框。对本研究中最常见的四个亚型（HCV1a、1b、3a、4d）进行最大似然系统发育树分析，并随后进行了传播聚类分析。HCV4d 样本的聚类率最高（13/17（76.47%））。HCV1a 样本的聚类率第二高（42/78（53.85%）），与 HIV 阳性 MSM 显著相关。HCV1b 和 HCV3a 的聚类率非常低（2/83（2.41%）和（0/29））。流行亚型 HCV1b 的传播似乎已大大减少，我们证明了 HCV1a 和 HCV4d 在 HIV 阳性 MSM 人群中跨越直辖市边界的传播。需要更系统的数据收集和测序，以更好地了解 PWID 社区中的 HCV 传播，并克服比利时消除 HCV 的剩余障碍。
