Occult Hepatitis C Infection Should Be More Noticed With New Treatment Strategies.

Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), as the only member of genus Hepacivirus within the family of Flaviviridae, is the major worldwide health concern. Diagnosis of HCV infection is based on finding antibodies against the virus (HCVantibodies) or HCV-RNA in the serum (1). It is known that some of the recently infected patients can recover from the acute infection. A meta-analysis of almost 700 patients with acute HCV-infection showed that the range of spontaneous viral clearance is about 26% (95% confidence interval 22% 29%) (2). However, the remaining patients can develop Chronic Hepatitis C (CHC) infection that affects about 3% of world population, related to more than 170 million people all over the world. Chronic hepatitis C can lead to liver fibrosis and cirrhosis and finally Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) in about 20% of cases. It is estimated that about 500000 deaths per year is related to CHC (3). On the other hand, in the acute phase of HCV infection, some patients stay unrecognized. These individuals can make transmission of HCV to other people by some high-risk behaviors like IV drug abuse, organ donation and blood transfusion (4). Now think about a condition that CHC cannot be diagnosed with the mentioned routine diagnostic tests and Imagine about dimensions of this condition on the health status of society.