GBV-C/HGV infection in hepatitis C virus-infected deferred Swedish blood donors

✍ Scribed by Shev, Steven; Björkman, Per; Norkrans, Gunnar; Foberg, Ulla; Frydén, Aril; Lindh, Gudrun; Lindholm, Annika; Weiland, Ola; Widell, Anders

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 40 KB
• Volume: 54
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0146-6615
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1096-9071(199802)54:2<75::aid-jmv1>3.0.co;2-l

✦ Synopsis

Sera from 62 hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected Swedish blood donors were tested by a nested polymerase chain reaction using primers targeting the 5Ј-noncoding region of the GB virus-C/ hepatitis G (GBV-C/HGV) genome and an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay that detects antibodies to the envelope protein E2 of GBV-C/ HGV (anti-E2). Fourteen (22%) and 21 (34%) of the 62 blood donors were found to be GBV-C/ HGV RNA and anti-E2 positive, respectively. None of the blood donors was positive for both GBV-C/HGV RNA and anti-E2. Thus, 35 of 62 (56%) HCV-infected donors had been exposed to GBV-C/HGV infection. At sequencing of the 14 GBV-C/HGV isolates, 12 were identified as subtype 2a and 2 as subtype 2b. One of 7 (14%) donors with mild liver disease such as steatosis and nonspecific reactive hepatitis had been exposed to GBV-C/HGV vs. 34 of 55 (62%) with chronic hepatitis with or without cirrhosis (P = 0.04). All other differences in histology were small between HCV and dual HCV GBV-C/HGVinfected donors. In conclusion, more than half of HCV-infected Swedish blood donors in this study were positive for either GBV-C/HGV RNA or anti-E2. GBV-C/HGV viremia and seropositivity were mutually exclusive.