Hepatitis C virus infection in different groups of children in Wuhan area

To investigate the incidence of child's HCV infection in our area, 637 children with different background, including 65 posttransfusion cases, 419 hepatitis patients (250 cases of acute hepatitis A, 156 cases of chronic hepatitis B and 13 cases of non-A, non-B hepatitis), 50 infantile hepatitis syndrome (1HS) infants and 103 healthy day-cared children were tested for serum anti-HCV antibody (EIA) and HCV RNA (nested PCR). It was found that posttransfusion children had significantly higher anti-HCV positive rate (30. 8%) and HCV infection incidence (43.1%) than hepatitis patients (4.3% and 5.3%), IHS infants (6.0% and 8.0%) and daycared children (2.9% and 2.9%). 25 of 33 cases with posttransfusion hepatitis (PTH) developed hepatitis C, which was the leading cause of PTH (75.8%) and NANB PTH (25/30, 83.3%). The incidence of HCV infection in NANBH patients was 23.1% (3/13) which was apparently higher than that in day-cared children (P <0. 02) and lower than that in PTH patients (P<0. 001), but not statistically different from that in AHA and CHB patients (P>0. 05). Mother-infant paired study in IHS group showed that 4 pairs of mother-infant had HCV infection, one boy aged 8 months and his mother were anti-HCV positive, and another 3 pairs possessed HCV RNA in sera. 3 of 103 healthy day-cared children were found to have inapparent HCV infection, who were anti-HCV and HCV RNA positive.