فراواني و ژنوتايپ ويروس هپاتيت G در بيماران آلوده به ويروس نقص ايمني انساني

Prevalence and Genotype of Hepatitis G virus infection in HIV Positive Patients

Background and objective: Hepatitis G virus (HGV) is common in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected patients due to similar modes of transmission. HGV infection can change the clinical outcome of HIV. In this study we aimed to determine the prevalence, genotype and related factors of HGV infection in HIV positive patients. Materials and methods: 106 HIV-infected patients were enrolled in this study. HGV-RNA was detected in serum samples by reverse transcriptase-nested polymerase chain reaction. HBsAg, anti-HBs, anti-HCV, ALT levels, HIV viral load and CD4 cells count were also tested in all subjects. Results: Prevalence of HGV-RNA was 11.32% in our subjects. HGV co-infection with HCV and HBV presented in 58.33% and 8.33% of cases respectively. There was no significant difference between the HGV-positive and negative patients regarding to age, sex, route of transmission, mean CD4 cell counts, HIV viral load and HCV and HBV co-infection. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that all HGV isolates were genotype 2, and classified as subtype 2a. Conclusion: HGV infection was relatively common in our HIV-positive patients. This study showed that HGV-RNA was more frequent in patients with injection drug use (IDUs*than those with sexual risk of exposure. The prevailing HGV genotype 2a in our study group concurred with reports from other parts of Middle East