HEPATITIS C SEROPREVALENCE AMONG 0-14 YEARS OLD CHILDREN

Urgancı N¹, Hatipoglu S¹, Meral G¹, Uyar T², Nuhoglu A¹

¹Department of Pediatrics

²Blood Products Center

Sisli Etfal Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey

Objective: Our aim was to evaluate the prevalence of hepatitis C antibodies among 0-14 years old children.

Methods: Totally 1560 children were included into the study. 743 of the cases were female (47.63%), 817 of them were male (52.37%) and the mean age was 8.51 +/- 5.02.

Results: Among the 1506 cases anti-HCV antibodies were positive only in two cases (0.13%). One of the cases was female and the other was male. HIV antibodies and HCV RNA were found to be negative in both of them. There wasn��t any history for jaundice in these two cases. One of them was 11 and the other was 12 years old, so there might be an increase in the seropositivity depending on the increase of age. Beside this, inappropriate and unsterile venous or arterial punctures, injections, circumcision might be risk factors for the seropositivity of unknown source.

Conclusion: As HCV infection is transmitted mainly by parenteral route and as there is not yet any effective immunization against HCV, any of the invasive medical procedures should be performed strictly according to the rules of antisepsis.

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