Prevalence of hepatitis G virus (HGV) among hepatitis-B patients and others suspected for PT-hepatitis in Baghdad

Abstract

The aim of this research is to evaluate the prevalence of HGV among three different categories, group1, composed of hepatitis –B patients (HB- patients), group 2, included people having hepatitis-like symptoms with sera negative for HBV and HCV markers, referred to as suspected for hepatitis (SUS-patients) while the third group is the control group. Serum samples were assayed for anti-HGV antibodies using ELISA technique-indirect method. Results revealed that HGV coinfection detected in only few number of HB-P 9.8%, 23.5% of HB-P having anti-HGV antibodies with titer lower than the cut-off value (COV) which are said to be in the shadow zone and the other 66.6% of the group are reported as negative cases, reporting a highly significant difference P˂0.001. Among the second group (SUS- patients), HGV was detected in only 4.8%, 58.5% detected as shadow cases while the other 36.5% were found to be negative for HGV.When both HB-P and SUS-P are gathered in one group a low percentage 7.6% of HGV infection was recorded, 39.1% of HB-/SUS-patients were in the shadow zone while the majority of this group 53.2% were detected as negative cases. In conclusion HGV play only a minor role as a confection agent with HBV and as a responsible agent among non-A-E hepatitis cases. Remarkable high percentages of shadow cases are reported in the three groups especially among non-A-E hepatitis patients.