Infection with GB virus C (GBV-C) in patients with chronic liver disease or on maintenance hemodialysis in Indonesia

✍ Scribed by Tsuda, Fumio; Hadiwandowo, Soeliadi; Sawada, Naoto; Fukuda, Masako; Tanaka, Takeshi; Okamoto, Hiroaki; Miyakawa, Yuzo; Mayumi, Makoto

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 514 KB
• Volume: 49
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0146-6615
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1096-9071(199607)49:3<248::aid-jmv15>3.0.co;2-8

✦ Synopsis

RNA of a non-A to E hepatitis virus identified recently and designated provisionally GB virus C (GBV-C), was sought in patients in Indonesia by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction with nested primers deduced from a helicaselike region. GBV-C RNA was detected in 32 (55%) of 58 patients on maintenance hemodialysis at a frequency significantly higher ( P < 0.001) than that in seven (5%) of 149 patients with chronic liver disease. Co-infection with hepatitis C virus was observed in 26 (81%) of the 32 patients on hemodialysis and in five (71%) of the seven patients with liver disease who were infected with GBV-C. Complete identity was observed in a sequence of 100 base pairs in the helicase-like region for GBV-C cDNA clones from some patients on maintenance hemodialysis. These results indicate that the patients on hemodialysis would be at high risk for GBV-C infection, which would be transmitted by transfusion and patient-to-patient routes.