Prevalence of Hepatitis C virus in HIV infected persons in a tertiary hospital in Nigeria.

To assess the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among HIV/AIDS patients in a tertiary hospital inNigeria. All infected persons confirmed by Elisa and aged 15 years and above seen at theUniversity of Benin Teaching Hospital were included in the study. The subjects were recruited over a period of one year. All patients with sickle cell anemia and other immuno compromising diseases were excluded from the study. Ageand sex matched controls were pooled from patients attending the out patient clinics of the hospital who were HIV negatives.Amedical history and complete physical examination under bright light was carried out on all the subjects. Assays done for each of the patients were HIV screening by Elisa techniques and confirmed by doubleElisa and hepatitisCvirus screening. A total of 370 subjects were involved in the study of which 204 were cases (HIV positive patients) while 166 were HIV negative controls. Comparing the patients who were widowed with other marital groups, more of the widows were HIVpositive than othermarital groups. This difference was found to be statistically significant (X =12.807, df = 1: P = 0.000). Nine (4.4%) HIV positive patients were found to be Hepatitis C seropositive while 4 (2.4%) HIV negative controls were hepatitis C seropositive. There was no statistical difference between the prevalence of Hepatitis C virus infection among HIVpositive patients and the controls (HIVnegative patients) This study has shown that there is no statistical significant difference between the prevalence of hepatitisCvirus infection inHIVpositive andHIVnegative patients.This is in agreementwith findings in other developing countries, in the South/South (NigerDelta) ofNigeria and other regions of Nigeria.Keywords: Prevalence, hepatitis C,HIV patients