Prevalence of Hepatitis C genotypes in District Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Abstract

The present study was conducted to determine the prevalence and genotype of Hepatitis C in District Swabi. Blood samples were collected from 100 seropositive patients from various hospitals of District Swabi, out of which, 93 samples were found positive by qualitative analysis through PCR. Positive samples were genotyped using Nested PCR. It was observed from the analysis of positive samples that 1a, 1b, 2a, 3a, 3b along with mixed genotypes are prevalent in Swabi. The most prevalent genotype was 3a with the rate of 73.13% followed by 3b with 11.82% rate and 1b to be the least common genotype at rate of 1.10%. From the present study it was concluded that HCV genotypes 1a, 1b, 3a and 3b are distributed in various parts of Swabi and genotype 3a is the most frequent genotype.