Report of outbreak of Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B virus infections in an Indian community

Abstract

Community outbreaks of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) have been reported, but to best of our knowledge no outbreak of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been re-ported in community. A community outbreak of jaundice was reported in Northern U.P. India. To better understand the outbreak we conducted the investigation. A team consisting of physicians, research scientist/assistant and laboratory technicians, visited these villages and camp approach was applied to cover most of the cases. Detailed clinical data was collected. All collected samples were tested for hepatitis A, B, C, D and E virus infections. Nucleic acid testing for HBV and HCV was also done for all samples and am-plified products were sequenced to know the genotype and transmission mechanism. A total of 101 samples were collected of which 63(62.4%) were positive for HCV. HBV was also detected in 17(16.8%) individuals. Sequencing results of HCV and HBV revealed that 21of 22 samples of HCV were genotype 3a and all samples sequenced for HBV belonged to genotype D. Community outbreak of HCV is disastrous to human health as this, along with HBV infec-tion indicates towards the unsafe medical practices in developing world.