THE OCCURRENCE OF THE MARKERS OF HEPATITIS C AMONG PRACTICALLY HEALTHY RESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC OF GUINEA: A PILOT STUDY

Phylogeographical and philodinamic studies have shown that the hepatitis C virus began to circulate in the human population about 500–2000 years ago on the A frican continent and only in the 20th century, this virus received the ubiquitary distribution. According to WHO in the world more than 71 million people are chronically infected by the hepatitis C virus, more than half of them live in A frica and South-East Asia. At the same time, the actual prevalence of hepatitis C in most countries of sub-Saharan A frica, including the Republic of Guinea, remains poorly understood.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the occurrence of serological and molecular markers of hepatitis C on a random small selection of blood samples obtained from healthy adults of the Republic of Guinea.

Materials and methods. Serum and plasma blood samples obtained from thirty one healthy adults of 24–71 years old of the Republic of Guinea were examined. Blood samples were collected in 2015–2016 years. The serum samples were analyzed for the presence of total anti-HCV (IgG+IgM),  of specific antibodies to the core, the NS3, the NS4 and the NS5B HCV proteins, of core antigene with “DS-ELISA-ANTI-HCV-GM”, “DS-ELISA-ANTI-HCV-SPEKTRE-GM”, “DS-ELISA-HCV-Ag” detection kits (RPC “Diagnostic Systems”, Russia), respectively. RNA HCV were detected by RT-PCR with detection kit “A mpliSens HCV-FRT” (CRIE, Moscow) and by nested-PCR using the primers from 5’UTR region. HCV genotypes were determined by RT-PCR  with detection kit “A mpliSens HCV-genotype FRT” (CRIE, Moscow) and by phylogenetic analysis based on the 5’UTR region.

Results and discussion. In this pilot study, the presence of HCV markers was confirmed in 3 (9.68%, 95% CI 3.35–24.90) of 31 examined persons. Two of them had RNA HCV. Based on the phylogenetic analysis of the 5’UTR region of the HCV genome, the isolate obtained from person No. 5 belonged to genotype 1, and the isolate obtained from person No. 6 belonged to genotype 2. The obtained results together with the analyzed literature data indicate a significant burden of hepatitis C in the Republic of Guinea, and also indicate the need to develop both an algorithm of diagnostic criteria and the improvement of diagnostic test systems for mass screening of the A frican population in order to establish the proportion of persons involved in epidemic process.