More than half of intravenous drug users (IDUs) in China
suffer from the Hepatitis C virus (HCV). The virus is also more prevalent in
non-injection drug users (NIDUs) than in the general population. However, not
much is known about HCV subtype distribution in these populations.
Our research team conducted a cross-sectional study in four
provinces in China. We sampled 825 IDUs and 244 NIDUs (1162 total), genotyped
each DU’s virus, and performed a phylogenetic analysis to differentiate HCV
subtypes.
Nucleic acid testing (NAT) determined that 82% percent
(952/1162) of samples were HCV positive; we subtyped 90% (859/952) of these. We
found multiple HCV subtypes: 3b (249, 29.0%), 3a (225, 26.2%), 6a (156, 18.2%),
1b (137, 15.9%), 6n (50, 5.9%), 1a (27, 3.1%), and 2a (15, 1.7%). An analysis
of subtype distributions adjusted for province found statistically significant
differences between HCV subtypes in IDUs and NIDUs.
HCV subtypes 3b, 3a, 6a, and 1b were the most common in our
study, together accounting for 89% of infections. The subtype distribution
differences we found between IDUs and NIDUs suggested that sharing syringes was
not the most likely pathway for HCV transmission in NIDUs. However, further
studies are needed to elucidate how NIDUs were infected.
Below: The distribution of HCV subtypes among Chinese drug users in four provinces
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By:
Jun Tao, Han-zhu Qian
Vanderbilt Institution for Global Health, Vanderbilt
University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America
Jun Liang, Hui Zhang, Lijian Pei, Yan Jiang, Yao Xiao
National AIDS Reference Laboratory (NARL), National Center
for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention (NCAIDS), Chinese Center for Disease
Control and Prevention (China CDC), Beijing, China
Han-zhu Qian
Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Nashville,
Tennessee, United States of America
Matthew C. Chambers
Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America
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