Prevalence of HCV Virus among Thalassemia Patients in Albania

Background The hepatitis C virus is a bloodborne virus that causes acute and chronic hepatitis infection. It is a major global healthcare problem, causing an increase level of liver- related morbidity and mortality. Up to 3 % of the worlds population has been infected with the virus, equating to more than 170 million carriers of HCV worldwide.80 % of the HCV virus infected persons become persistently infected and 30 % of these develop progressive liver disease such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), thats why HCV infection is now the leading reason for liver transplantation. In most European countries, patients with transfusion-dependent thalassaemia and other haemoglobinopathies represent a population of patients that was infected with HCV and other infection diseases, during the years preceding the development and implementation of sensitive and specific mandatory blood screening for HCV. Methods For this study we enrolled 103 multitransfused patients with thalassaemia disease at the University Hospital Mother Theresa of Tirana, Albania. The collected blood were tested for HCV, HBV and HDV virus. Results The prevalence of HCV virus among the thalassaemia patients was 28 % (29/103). According to the age groups, we noticed that prevalence of HCV virus was higher among the patients between 10-20 years old. Meanwhile 12.6 % (13/103) of the patients resulted positive for HBsAg and among them 15 % (2/13) resulted positive even for HDV virus. Conclusions Prevalence of viral hepatitis as HCV, HBV is high among the multi-transfused thalassaemia patients and is influenced by the amount of blood transfusions and the screening process of the blood donors.