Hepatitis C virus genotypes in north eastern Algeria: A retrospective study

AIM: To determine the frequency of various hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotypes present in patients from north eastern Algeria. METHODS: This is a retrospective cross-sectional study of 435 HCV infected patients from northeast Algeria, detected in the Sadelaoud laboratory and diagnosed between January 2010 and December 2012. The patients were diagnosed with HCV infection in their local hospitals and referred to be assessed for HCV genotype before the antiviral treatment. Demographic information (sex, age and address), genotype, subtype and viral load were retrieved from the patient medical records. The serum samples were tested by the type-specific genotyping assay. RESULTS: The majority of the patients (82.5%) were from the central part of the examined region (P = 0.002). The mean age of the patients studied was 53.6 ± 11.5 years. HCV genotype 1 was the most frequent (88.7%), followed by genotypes 2 (8.5%), 4 (1.1%), 3 (0.9%) and 5 (0.2%). Genotype 6 was not detected in these patients. Mixed infection across the HCV subtypes was detected in twenty patients (4.6%). The genotype distribution was related to age and region. Genotype 1 was significantly less frequent in the ≥ 60 age group than in the younger age group (OR = 0.2; 95%CI: 0.1-0.5, P < 0.001). Furthermore, genotype 1 was more frequent in the central part of the examined region than elsewhere (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The HCV genotype (type 1b was dominant) distribution in Algeria is different from those in other northern countries of Africa. © 2013 Baishideng.