Author(s): Mudasir Mushtaq, Seema Alam, Indu Shukla, Rana Sherwani, S Manazir Ali
The prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in children with chronic liver disease (CLD) and neonatal cholestasis syndrome (NCS) has been determined in the present study. All the cases of CLD and NCS attending the Pediatric Gastroenterology clinic between Oct 2004 to Oct 2006 were included in this study and the sera of the patients was tested for anti-HCV antibodies by an ELISA based third generation diagnostic kit. Of the total of 86 patients enrolled in the study, 50 were cases of CLD and 36 were cases of NCS. There were only 2 patients positive for anti-HCV antibody out of total 86 cases. The first sero-positive case was among the patients of CLD and the second sero-positive child was a patient of NCS. The prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in children with CLD and NCS in our region is 2.0% and 2.8%, respectively.