TY - JOUR
TI - Molecular epidemiology of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in Greece: temporal
trends in HCV genotype-specific incidence and molecular characterization
of genotype 4 isolates
AU - Katsoulidou, A
AU - Sypsa, V
AU - Tassopoulos, NC
AU - Boletis, J and
AU - Karafoulidou, A
AU - Ketikoglou, I
AU - Tsantoulas, D
AU - Vafiadi, I and
AU - Hatzis, G
AU - Skoutelis, A
AU - Akriviadis, E
AU - Vasiliadis, T and
AU - Kitis, G
AU - Magiorkinis, G
AU - Hatzakis, A
JO - Journal of Viral Hepatitis
PY - 2006
VL - 13
TODO - 1
SP - 19-27
PB - Wiley
SN - 1352-0504, 1365-2893
TODO - 10.1111/j.1365-2893.2005.00649.x
TODO - genotype 4; HCV genotypes; hepatitis C virus; molecular epidemiology;
NS5B; phylogenetic analysis
TODO - This study aimed to estimate the overall HCV genotype distribution and
to reconstruct the HCV genotype-specific incidence in Greece during the
recent decades. It also focused at the identification of genotype 4
subtype variability in Greek isolates. A total of 1686 chronically
infected HCV patients with detectable serum HCV RNA by RT-PCR, belonging
to different risk groups were studied. Amplified products from the
5’-noncoding region were typed using a commercially available assay
based on the reverse hybridization principle. The HCV genotype-specific
incidence was estimated using a previously described back calculation
method. HCV genotype 1 was the most prevalent (46.9%) followed by
genotype 3 (28.1%), 4 (13.2%), 2 (6.9%) and 5 (0.4%). A high
prevalence of genotype 1 (66.3%) in haemophilia patients was recorded
whereas HCV genotype 3 was found mainly among patients infected by I.V.
drug use (58.2%). Data on the temporal patterns of HCV
genotype-specific incidence in Greece revealed a moderate increase
(1.3-1.6 times) for genotypes 1 and 4, and a decrease (1.5 times) for
genotype 2 from 1970 to 1990, whereas there was a sharp (13-fold)
increase for genotype 3. The molecular characterization of 41 genotype 4
HCV isolates belonging to various risk groups revealed that, subtype 4a
was the most frequently detected (78%). Phylogenetic comparison of the
Greek 4a isolates with all HCV-4a isolates reported worldwide so far
revealed a topology which does not discriminate Greek isolates from the
others. HCV-4 does not represent a recent introduction in Greece.
ER -