Sarwar Jehan Zuberi, Arif A.
Serotyping of the Hepatitis C in Pakistan.
J Pak Med Assoc Jan ;52(5):218-9.

This study reports the frequency of HCV serotypes in our patients and other reported series from Pakistan. Two hundred and seventy eight patients of chronic liver disease with persistently raised alanine aminotransferase, positive anti HCV and HCV RNA were included in this study. All samples were serotyped using Murex serotyping 1-6 assay assay system (Abbott Laboratories) which is based on peptides derived from two regions of NS4.There were 200 (71.9%) males and 78 (28.1%) females. Of 278 sera 215 (77.3%) were typable and 63 (22.7%) untypable. Of typable sera 171(79.5 %) were of type 3,19 (8.8%) had multiple serotypes and 18 (8.4%) were of type 1. Conclusion: As in Pakistan, Serotype 3 is more common in other South and South East Asian countries. Overall frequency of multiple serotypes is 4.7% in Pakistan and 8.8% in this study. Positivity of multiple serotypes may be due to transient or occult super-infection or ineffective immunity in patients with chronic HCV infection. Better response to interferon and short term treatment is reported in patients infected with serotype 3.

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