Research published this week in PLoS Medicine finds that the global spread of Hepatitis C virus (HCV) coincided with widespread use of transfused blood and with the expansion of intravenous drug use but slowed before wholesale implementation of anti-HCV screening.
Angelos Hatzakis and colleagues used phylodynamic and phylogeographic methods to analyse sequences of HCV subtype 1a and 1b samples (these subtypes cause 60% of global HCV infections) collected over the past 20-30 years in the Los Alamos HCV sequence database. These analyses also suggest that the most plausible route for the spread of hepatitis C virus was from the developed to the developing world.
Funding: GM was supported by GeneTime Early Stage Researcher Training Grant MEST-CT-2004-007909. EM was supported by the Hellenic Scientific Society for the Study of AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases. DP was supported by the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests:The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation:Magiorkinis G, Magiorkinis E, Paraskevis D, Ho SYW, Shapiro B, et al. (2009) The Global Spread of Hepatitis C Virus 1a and 1b: A Phylodynamic and Phylogeographic Analysis. PLoS Med 6(12): e1000198. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000198
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CONTACT:
Angelos Hatzakis
University of Athens, Medical School
Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology,
75 Mikras Asias St
Athens, Attiki 11527
Greece
+302107462090
ahatzak@med.uoa.gr
PLOS Medicine