Seropositivity and active HCV infection in patients from Peshawar Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan.

Abstract.- Hepatitis C is one of the most common blood-borne diseases causing significant morbidity and mortality globally. This study was designed to evaluate any correlation between 3 rd generations ELISA positivity for anti-HCV antibody plus elevated ALT levels with Real-time PCR based detection among various categories of patients attending Khyber Teaching Hospital Peshawar. Total 160 serum samples were collected from clinically HCV positive individuals. All samples were tested for anti-HCV antibodies and HCV RNA using 3 rd generation ELISA and real time PCR. Our analysis of all 160 positive samples indicated that 158 (98.75%) had anti-HCV antibodies in their sera (Male, 82; Female, 76), while 2 subjects (a male and a female) were negative for anti-HCV using third generation ELISA. Real-time PCR analysis further revealed that 100 subjects (62.5%) had active HCV infection while the remaining 60 (37.5%) subjects did not have HCV RNA in their sera. Our study indicates that seropositivity does not reveal the presence of active HCV infection as it may be due to the self-limiting nature of the disease or due to false positivity, which is often experienced in case of antibodies based detection.