| Literature DB >> 23976941 |
G L Abby Harrison1, Jan Pryor, Joji Malani, Mathias Supuri, Andrew Masta, Burentau Teriboriki, Tebuka Toatu, David Penny, Jean-Pierre Allain, Eleanor Barnes, Oliver G Pybus, Paul Klenerman.
Abstract
It has been estimated that there are more than 60 million Hepatitis C virus (HCV) carriers in the World Health Organisation's Western Pacific region (WHO-WPR), where liver cancer is among the top three causes of cancer death. WHO and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention report the prevalence of HCV in the South Pacific islands (countries within the WHO-WPR) to be high (5-10% and >2% respectively). However, since HCV is not tested for in many of these countries, there is sparse data available to support this assertion. We screened ∼2000 apparently healthy individuals from Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Kiribati and found a sero-prevalence of 2.0%, 0.1% and 0%, respectively. All sero-positive samples tested negative for HCV RNA. Curious as to why all the sero-positive individuals were negative for HCV-RNA, we also screened them for the HCV protective IL28B SNP markers rs12979860 and rs8099917. All antibody-positive participants bar one had HCV protective haplotypes. Our results suggest that HCV is present in these Pacific island countries, albeit at a prevalence lower than previous estimates. As none of our participants had undergone antiviral treatment, and therefore must have cleared infection naturally, we hypothesise that genotypes 1 and/or 4 are circulating in South Pacific Island people and that these peoples are genetically predisposed to be more likely to spontaneous resolve HCV infection than to become chronic carriers.Entities:
Mesh:
Substances:
Year: 2013 PMID: 23976941 PMCID: PMC3748064 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0066749
Source DB: PubMed Journal: PLoS One ISSN: 1932-6203 Impact factor: 3.240
Serological HCV results by age.
| Kiribati | Fiji | Papua New Guinea | ||||||||||||||||
| Male | Female | Total | Male | Female | Total | Male | Female | Total | ||||||||||
| Age yrs | sampled | +ve | sampled | +ve | sampled | +ve | sampled | +ve | Sampled | +ve | Sampled | +ve | sampled | +ve | sampled | +ve | sampled | +ve |
|
| 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 8 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 19 | 0 |
|
| 3 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 19 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 29 | 0 | 39 | 0 |
|
| 51 | 0 | 202 | 0 | 253 | 0 | 48 | 0 | 318 | 1 | 366 | 1 | 66 | 2 | 177 | 5 | 243 | 7 |
|
| 31 | 0 | 233 | 0 | 264 | 0 | 58 | 0 | 213 | 0 | 271 | 0 | 71 | 2 | 137 | 2 | 208 | 4 |
|
| 25 | 0 | 66 | 0 | 91 | 0 | 53 | 0 | 71 | 0 | 124 | 0 | 51 | 2 | 45 | 1 | 96 | 3 |
|
| 9 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 36 | 0 | 27 | 0 | 63 | 0 | 14 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 27 | 0 |
|
| 3 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 23 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 0 |
|
| 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
|
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
|
| 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
|
| 128 | 0 | 529 | 0 |
|
| 233 | 0 | 671 | 1 |
|
| 225 | 6 | 418 | 8 |
|
|
Abbreviations: yrs, years; sampled, number sampled; +ve, number of serologically positive samples;
, participants sex was not recorded; U/N, age not recorded.
Serological HCV results by country.
| Sample size | Number seropositive | Prevalence (maximum likelihood estimate) | Prevalence (95% lower CI) | Prevalence (95% upper CI) | |
| Kiribati | 657 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 0.5% |
| Fiji | 904 | 1 | 0.1% | <0.01% | 0.7% |
| PNG | 644 | 14 | 2.2% | 1.3% | 3.6% |
Abbreviations: %, percentage; CI, Confidence Interval.
Serological HCV results by town in Papua New Guinea.
| Papua New Guinea | |||||
| Town | Sample size | Number seropositive | Prevalence (maximum likelihood estimate) | Prevalence (95% lower CI) | Prevalence (95% upper CI) |
| Port Moresby | 322 | 7 | 2.2% | 1.00% | 4.5% |
| Daru | 91 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 3.5% |
| Madang | 73 | 7 | 9.6% | 4.5% | 18.7% |
| Goroka | 59 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 5.3% |
| Mt Hagen | 99 | 0 | 0% | 0% | 3.2% |
| Total | 644 | 14 | 2.2% | 1.3% | 3.6% |
Abbreviations: %, percentage; CI, Confidence Interval.
Primers.
| Primer | Primer sequences | Genotype |
| 5′UTR Ex F1 |
| All |
| 5′UTR In F3 |
| All |
| Core Ex R2 |
| All |
| Core In R4 |
| All |
| NS5B Ex F |
| 1–5 & ‘7’ |
| NS5B Ex R |
| 1–5 & ‘7’ |
| NS5B ExF G6 |
| 6 |
| NS5B ExR G6 |
| 6 |
| NS5B In F |
| All |
| NS5B In R |
| All |
| 860 Ex F |
| rs12979860 |
| 860 Ex R |
| rs12979860 |
| 860 In F |
| rs12979860 |
| 860 In R |
| rs12979860 |
| 917 Ex F |
| rs8099917 |
| 917 Ex R |
| rs8099917 |
| 917 in R |
| rs8099917 |
Primers used in RT-PCR, and PCR reactions of the 5′UTR and NS5B region of HCV and the nested amplifications of the IL28B SNPs. Genotype 7 is in quotations as it is yet to be confirmed as a new genotype. TaqMan SNP typing for rs8099917 was conducted using custom Assays-on-Demand products from Applied Biosystems (C__11710096_10) and verified with the listed primers, using standard PCR and sequencing techniques.