Major Decline of Hepatitis C Virus Incidence Rate over Two Decades in a Cohort of Drug Users

Overview

Journal Eur J Epidemiol

Specialty Public Health

Date 2007 Mar 6

PMID 17334821

Citations 49

Authors

Charlotte H S B van den Berg

Colette Smit

Margreet Bakker

Ronald B Geskus

Ben Berkhout

Suzanne Jurriaans

Roel A Coutinho

Katja C Wolthers

Maria Prins

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Injecting drug users (DU) are at high risk for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV infections. To examine the prevalence and incidence of these infections over a 20-year period (1985-2005), the authors evaluated 1276 DU from the Amsterdam Cohort Studies who had been tested prospectively for HIV infection and retrospectively for HCV infection. To compare HCV and HIV incidences, a smooth trend was assumed for both curves over calendar time. Risk factors for HCV seroconversion were determined using Poisson regression. Among ever-injecting DU, the prevalence of HCV antibodies was 84.5% at study entry, and 30.9% were co-infected with HIV. Their yearly HCV incidence dropped from 27.5/100 person years (PY) in the 1980s to 2/100 PY in recent years. In multivariate analyses, ever-injecting DU who currently injected and borrowed needles were at increased risk of HCV seroconversion (incidence rate ratio 29.9, 95% CI 12.6, 70.9) compared to ever-injecting DU who did not currently inject. The risk of HCV seroconversion decreased over calendar time. The HCV incidence in ever-injecting DU was on average 4.4 times the HIV incidence, a pattern seen over the entire study period. The simultaneous decline of both HCV and HIV incidence probably results from reduced risk behavior at the population level.

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