Hepatitis C virus (HCV) prevalence estimation in the adult general population in Belgium : a meta-analysis.
Although multiple HCV prevalence studies were recently performed in the general population from Belgium, they suffer from a lack of geographical representativeness, an insufficient number of participants or a lack of inclusion of high prevalence groups. The aim of this study is to provide robust information on the HCV burden. Recently performed HCV prevalence studies in the general, adult population were included in this study, based on well-defined selection criteria. A meta-analysis was performed to estimate the seroprevalence, the prevalence of participants with viremia and the prevalence e... Mehr ...
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Dokumenttyp: | Artikel |
Erscheinungsdatum: | 2019 |
Verlag/Hrsg.: |
Universa Press
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Schlagwörter: | Hepatitis C virus / Meta-analysis / Prevalence |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Permalink: | https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-28552862 |
Datenquelle: | BASE; Originalkatalog |
Powered By: | BASE |
Link(s) : | http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/225747 |
Although multiple HCV prevalence studies were recently performed in the general population from Belgium, they suffer from a lack of geographical representativeness, an insufficient number of participants or a lack of inclusion of high prevalence groups. The aim of this study is to provide robust information on the HCV burden. Recently performed HCV prevalence studies in the general, adult population were included in this study, based on well-defined selection criteria. A meta-analysis was performed to estimate the seroprevalence, the prevalence of participants with viremia and the prevalence estimation for people with viremia which were unaware of their status. Eight studies fulfilled the criteria for inclusion of the quantitative prevalence estimation. Based on the meta-analysis on these 8 studies, we estimated an HCV seroprevalence of 1.01% [95% CI : 0.66-1.42%], representing a total of 90,722 adult, HCV seropositives of which 64,412 individuals (0.71%) were confirmed seropositive. Based on the RNA presence, an estimated viremic prevalence of 0.33% [95% CI : 0.21-0.47 %] was determined, corresponding with 29,642 individuals. This is 46,0% of the true HCV seropositive residents. Further, based on the availability of patient information in 5 out of the 8 studies, a prevalence of 0.18% [95% CI : 0.07-0.33] representing 16,168 individuals from the adult Belgian population are unaware of their HCV status. We believe that the quantitative measurement by the meta-analysis will be more reliable for their use in the design of a screening strategy or in the development of prevention campaigns as compared to the prevalence estimations performed at local level.