Clinical, Laboratory, and Virological Profiles of Patients with Hepatitis C and B Co-infection in Upper Egypt

The globally high prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV), in association with the shared routes of transmission of these viruses, explains the inevitable common finding of HBV/HCV co-infection. Such interactions were first described when HCV infection was known as non-A, non-B hepatitis (Lee et al., 1985). It is difficult to accurately determine the number of HBV/HCV co infected individuals and there is considerable geographical variation; it is estimated that 3–22% of chronic HBV infected patients are HCV antibody positive and that 2–10% of anti-HCV-positive patients are HBs Ag positive (Chu and Lee,2008). Outside endemic areas, HBV/HCV co-infection most frequently occurs in specific high-risk International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 5 Number 5 (2016) pp. 419-429 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com