Egypt: Egypt has highest infection level of hepatitis C: study

According to a new study by researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, Egypt has the highest infection level of the disease in the world. About 15% of the population carry HCV, with at least 100,000 new cases every year, but the proportion of these new infections that occur through different transmission routes is not well understood. This study is the first, for any country, to estimate the number of new cases of HCV as a consequence of mother-to-child (vertical) transmission.

The authors estimated that in 2008, between 3,000 and 5,000 new cases of the infection were caused by this transmission route, which can occur during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period from an infected mother to her child.

In addition, the findings show that mother-to-child transmission is an important transmission route among children under five years of age, contributing between a third and a half of new cases in that age group in Egypt.

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Egypt: Mothers infecting children with hepatitis C in Egypt

Up to 5,000 Egyptian children a year could be infected by hepatitis C through their mothers.

A new study suggests that between 3,000 and 5,000 Egyptian children could be infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) annually through mother-to-child transmission¹.

This vertical transmission, which is still not fully understood, is believed to occur during pregnancy, child birth or during the postpartum period, most probably from cracked nipples.

The scientists from the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the UK focused on Egypt, which has the highest incidence of HCV worldwide, with an estimated 14.7% of the population carrying the virus and up to 100,000 new infections occurring each year, according to WHO.

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Vertical Transmission of HCV: The Next Big Treatment Frontier

Novel antiviral therapies with overwhelmingly positive sustained virologic response rates have dominated headlines in hepatitis C virus for the past few years, but many experts said eradication efforts may never completely succeed until the clinical community deals with vertical transmission of the disease.

There may be as many as 11 million children with HCV in the world, according to Kathleen B. Schwarz, MD, professor of pediatrics, director of the Pediatric Liver Center at Johns Hopkins and president of the Federation of International Societies of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition.

Philip Rosenthal, MD, professor of pediatrics and surgery, director of pediatric clinical research, pediatric hepatology and liver transplant research and pediatric hepatology at the University of California, San Francisco, pushed that number higher, suggesting that as many as 7,500 new cases occur from vertical transmission each year in the United States. “Spontaneous clearance of the virus can be seen in up to 40% of infants infected by vertical transmission, but only in 6% to 12% of older children with HCV,” he told HCV Next. “A small subset of children — between 20% and 25% — can have more aggressive disease with evidence of cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma.” 

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