For Publishers
DiscoveryMetadataPeer reviewHostingPublishing
For Researchers
JoinPublishReviewCollect
Register
Blog
About
Search
Advanced search
My ScienceOpen
Search
For Publishers
For Researchers
Blog
About
68
views
121
references
 Top references
cited by
27
    
0 reviews
 Review
0
comments
 Comment
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    4
    shares
      148
      similar
       All similar
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      Hepatitis C Virus in Arab World: A State of Concern

      review-article
      Author(s): 1 , * , 2
      Publication date (Electronic):
      Journal: The Scientific World Journal
      Publisher: The Scientific World Journal

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Hepatitis C virus has been considered to be one of the most important devastating causes of chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatic cellular carcinoma. The prevalence of such virus varies greatly over the world. Arab world has a unique geography and consists over nineteen countries who share the same heritage and customs and do speak the same language. In this area, the epidemiology of hepatitis C is not well understandable. Hepatitis C virus was found to be endemic in Arabia. The serostatus of such virus was found to be variable among these countries with uniform patterns of genotypes. Such prevalence varies tremendously according to the risk factors involved. Blood and blood products, haemodialysis, intravenous, and percutaneous drug users, and occupational, habitual, and social behavior were found to be the important factors involved. Hepatitis C will have major social, economic, and even political burdens on such young and dynamic societies. Thus, strategies and clear policy of intervention are urgently needed to combat the consequences of HCV both regionally and at state level of each country.

          Related collections

          Most cited references121

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Epidemiology of hepatitis C virus infection.

          Miriam J Alter (2007)
          Globally, hepatitis C virus (HCV) has infected an estimated 130 million people, most of whom are chronically infected. HCV-infected people serve as a reservoir for transmission to others and are at risk for developing chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, and primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). It has been estimated that HCV accounts for 27% of cirrhosis and 25% of HCC worldwide. HCV infection has likely been endemic in many populations for centuries. However, the wave of increased HCV-related morbidity and mortality that we are now facing is the result of an unprecedented increase in the spread of HCV during the 20th century. Two 20th century events appear to be responsible for this increase; the widespread availability of injectable therapies and the illicit use of injectable drugs.
          Article 0 comments Cited 227 times – based on 0 reviews     Review now
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            A systematic review of hepatitis C virus epidemiology in Asia, Australia and Egypt.

            William Sievert, Ibrahim Altraif, Homie A Razavi … (2011)
            The hepatitis C pandemic has been systematically studied and characterized in North America and Europe, but this important public health problem has not received equivalent attention in other regions. The objective of this systematic review was to characterize hepatitis C virus (HCV) epidemiology in selected countries of Asia, Australia and Egypt, i.e. in a geographical area inhabited by over 40% of the global population. Data references were identified through indexed journals and non-indexed sources. In this work, 7770 articles were reviewed and 690 were selected based on their relevance. We estimated that 49.3-64.0 million adults in Asia, Australia and Egypt are anti-HCV positive. China alone has more HCV infections than all of Europe or the Americas. While most countries had prevalence rates from 1 to 2% we documented several with relatively high prevalence rates, including Egypt (15%), Pakistan (4.7%) and Taiwan (4.4%). Nosocomial infection, blood transfusion (before screening) and injection drug use were identified as common risk factors in the region. Genotype 1 was common in Australia, China, Taiwan and other countries in North Asia, while genotype 6 was found in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries. In India and Pakistan genotype 3 was predominant, while genotype 4 was found in Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria. We recommend implementation of surveillance systems to guide effective public health policy that may lead to the eventual curtailment of the spread of this pandemic infection. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
            Article 0 comments Cited 168 times – based on 0 reviews     Review now
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Risk of hepatitis C virus infection among young adult injection drug users who share injection equipment.

              Lawrence J. Ouellet, Ronald Hershow, Richard S Garfein … (2002)
              Designing studies to examine hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission via the shared use of drug injection paraphernalia other than syringes is difficult because of saturation levels of HCV infection in most samples of injection drug users (IDUs). The authors measured the incidence of HCV infection in a large cohort of young IDUs from Chicago, Illinois, and determined the risk of HCV seroconversion associated with specific forms of sharing injection paraphernalia. From 1997 to 1999, serum samples obtained from 702 IDUs aged 18-30 years were screened for HCV antibodies; prevalence was 27%. Seronegative participants were tested for HCV antibodies at baseline, at 6 months, and at 12 months. During 290 person-years of follow-up, 29 participants seroconverted (incidence: 10.0/100 person-years). The adjusted relative hazard of seroconversion, controlling for demographic and drug-use covariates, was highest for sharing "cookers" (relative hazard = 4.1, 95% confidence interval: 1.4, 11.8), followed by sharing cotton filters (relative hazard = 2.4, 95% confidence interval: 1.1, 5.0). Risks associated with syringe-sharing and sharing of rinse water were elevated but not significant. After adjustment for syringe-sharing, sharing cookers remained the strongest predictor of seroconversion (relative hazard = 3.5, 95% confidence interval: 1.3, 9.9). The authors conclude that sharing of injection equipment other than syringes may be an important cause of HCV transmission between IDUs.
              Article 0 comments Cited 92 times – based on 0 reviews     Review now
                Bookmark
                All references

                Author and article information

                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): ScientificWorldJournal
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): ScientificWorldJournal
                Journal ID (publisher-id): TSWJ
                Title: The Scientific World Journal
                Publisher: The Scientific World Journal
                ISSN (Electronic): 1537-744X
                Publication date Collection: 2012
                Publication date (Electronic): 2 May 2012
                Volume: 2012
                Electronic Location Identifier: 719494
                Affiliations
                1Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology, Tripoli Medical Centre, Faculty of Medicine Tripoli, P.O. Box 82668, Tripoli, Libya
                2Department of Vascular Surgery, Tripoli Medical Centre, Faculty of Medicine Tripoli, P.O. Box 82664, Tripoli, Libya
                Author notes

                Academic Editors: L. A. Videla and T. Weiss

                Article
                DOI: 10.1100/2012/719494
                PMC ID: 3354686
                PubMed ID: 22629189
                SO-VID: 7d5752a7-1e88-4b5a-b43a-08dd7b7b2b6b
                Copyright © Copyright © 2012 M. A. Daw and A. A. Dau.
                License:

                This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                Date received : 1 January 2012
                Date accepted : 18 January 2012
                Categories
                Subject: Review Article

                ScienceOpen disciplines: Uncategorized
                Data availability:
                ScienceOpen disciplines: Uncategorized

                Comments

                Comment on this article

                scite_

                Similar content148

                See all similar

                Cited by26

                See all cited by

                Most referenced authors802

                See all reference authors