Epidemiology and natural history of hepatitis C virus infection

Table 1 Seroprevalence of antibodies against hepatitis C virus in community-based studies

Study site	Study period	Study population	Population size	% with HCV antibody	% with positive HCV RNA among anti-HCV seropositives
America
United States[7]	1988-1994	National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, subjects aged ≥ 6 yr	21241	1.8	73.9
Puerto Rico[15]	2001-2002	Individuals aged 21-64 yr residing in the municipality of San Juan	964	6.3	Not done
Europe
Greece[11]	1997-1998	Individuals over 15 yr in south western Greece	1500	0.5	Not done
Norway[9]	2000-2001	A subset of Oslo Health Study, subjects older than 30 yr	11456	0.7	79.5
France[10]	1994	Individuals aged 20-59 undergoing routine medical checkup in social security medical centers	6283	1.2	81.0
Spain[16]	1997-1998	Random sample of all ages in northern Spain	1170	1.6	63.0
Italy[12]	1996	Individuals of all ages which representative to southern Italy	1352	12.6	84.7
Asia
India[8]	1999	Individuals of all ages living in rural area and engaged in agriculture-related occupations	2973	0.9	80.8
China[18]	1992	Individuals aged 1-59 yr in 30 provinces	68000	3.2	Not done
Taiwan[17]	1991-1992	Males aged 30-65 yr participated a cancer screening project	11904	4.9	Not done
Japan[14]	1984-1995	Residents aged 20-89 yr in southern Miyazaki Prefecture	973	23	Not done
Africa
Egypt[13]	1997	Adults and children aged older than 10 yr residing in Nile Delta	3999	24.3	Non done

HCV: Hepatitis C virus.