Rates of infection and phylogenetic analysis of GB virus-C among Kuwaiti and Jordanian blood donors.

OBJECTIVES GB virus-C/hepatitis G virus (GBV-C/HGV), collectively known as GBV-C, has been reported to be associated with non-A-E hepatitis. The aim of this study was to determine the rate of infection and genotypic characteristics of GBV-C among Kuwaiti and Jordanian blood donors. METHODS A total of 334 plasma/serum samples from healthy blood donors in Kuwait (n = 130) and Jordan (n = 204) were screened using RT-PCR/nested PCR of the 5'-untranslated region (5'-UTR). Phylogenetic analysis was conducted by sequencing the 5'-UTR region of the randomly picked clones representative of the two populations. RESULTS The results obtained showed that the rate of GBV-C infection in healthy Kuwaiti and Jordanian blood donors was 24.6 and 9.8%, respectively. Sequence analysis of the 5'-UTR using 4 and 6 clones from healthy Kuwaiti and Jordanian blood donors, respectively, revealed the prevalence of the European/North American genotype 2 when compared to the 6 reference genotypes in GenBank. CONCLUSION GBV-C/HGV was detectable at rates relatively comparable with other regions in the world in Kuwaiti and Jordanian blood donors, although the significance of which remains controversial. More interesting is the dominance of GBV-C genotype 2 among the two populations, which remains to be explained.