Introduction. Hepatitis A virus is the most common cause of acute viral hepatitis, and in people over 25 years age disease may have different degrees severity. Even though hepatitis infection was long believed to be transmitted strictly by fecal-oral route, now this classified among sexually diseases. Homosexual population, especially those positive for human immunodeficiency virus, at greatest...

The presence of anti-HCV antibodies has been examined in a group of 256 consecutive thalassemic patients who received blood transfusions in several countries around the world. Overall 60% were found to be anti-HCV positive. A higher incidence of anti-HCV antibodies was noted in Italian patients with respect to patients living in Eastern countries, and in southern Italy with respect to northern ...

It has been reported that monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) to the E1E2 glycoproteins may have the potential to prevent hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The protective epitopes targeted by these MAbs have been mapped to the regions encompassing amino acids 313-327 and 432-443. In this study, we synthesized these two peptides and tested the reactivity of serum samples from 336 patients, 210 of whic...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is classified into seven genotypes based on genetic diversity, and most genotypes have been found in Africa. Infections with HCV genotype 2 (HCV2) are most prevalent in West Africa and it was suggested that HCV2 originated in West Africa. To better understand the evolutionary epidemiology of HCV2 in Africa, we examined new NS5B sequences of HCV2 strains obtained from Côt...

one hundred sera from children 1 - 6 years of age, representative of a large serum collection, were tested for the prevalence of antibodies against different viruses. hemagglutination-inhibition (hi) antibodies were found in 68% for measles; 61 % for rubella; 75'% for influenza a2/hong kong/68, 16% for influenza b/md./59, 0% for group a arboviruses, 10% for group b arboviruses, 3% for phlebotom...

In May 2011, hepatitis C virus (HCV) protease inhibitors (PIs) were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat persons with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, but not those dually infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Although critical safety and efficacy data are lacking, the availability of the drugs and substantial medical need justify the off-lab...

BACKGROUND High mobility group (HMG) non-histone chromosomal proteins HMG1 and HMG2 have been identified as novel antigens of perinuclear anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (p-ANCAs), and the existence of anti-HMG1 and anti-HMG2 antibodies in a population of patients with ulcerative colitis has been reported. AIMS To investigate whether HMG1 and HMG2 are target antigens for p-ANCAs in aut...

We used cross-sectional willing anonymous salivary hepatitis C (WASH-C) surveillance linked to self-completed risk-factor questionnaires to estimate the prevalence of salivary hepatitis C antibodies (HepCAbS) in five Scottish prisons from 1994 to 1996. Of 2121 available inmates, 1864 (88%) participated and 1532/1864 (82%) stored samples were suitable for testing. Overall 311/1532 (20.3%, preval...