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Hepatitis C: frequency and risk factors associated with sero-positivity among adults in Larkana City.

BACKGROUND
Viral hepatitis is a major public health problem. Infection with Hepatitis C virus (HCV) leads to chronicity and there are about 170 million people infected with HCV. Up to 70% of chronically infected individuals develop active liver disease. The Objective of the study was to find out the frequency of Anti-HCV seropositivity and risk factors of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) transmission in people of Larkana city.


METHOD
The study was conducted at Larkana from April 2006 to April 2007. Camps were established in the main general practitioners' clinics. A questionnaire about knowledge of HCV and risk factors of its transmission was administered to subjects. Descriptive statistics were done by SPSS-10.


RESULT
Total 450 cases were enrolled into this study. They were divided into 3 age groups. Eighty-nine (19.8%) cases were in age group <20 years, 262 (58.2%) were in age group 20-40 years and 99 (22.0%) were in age group >40 years. There were 353 (78.4%) male and 97 (21.6%) female subjects, out of these 450 cases 30 (6.6%) were positive for Anti-HCV. A number of risk factors of HCV transmission were present in these cases. History of therapeutic injections was present in 72 cases and 35 cases used public barber services.


CONCLUSION
History of therapeutic injections and use of barber services for shave were the most frequent risk factors in our study.