Hepatitis C virus among blood donors and general population in Middle East and North Africa: Meta-analyses and meta-regressions

Table 1 Results of meta-analyses on studies reporting HCV Ab prevalence among blood donors and in the general population in Middle East and North Africa

Population	Studies	Samples	HCV Ab prevalence		Pooled HCV Ab prevalence		Heterogeneity measures
	Total (n)	Total (n)	Range (%)	Median (%)	Mean (%)	95%CI	Q (P value)1	I² (confidence limits)2	Prediction interval (%)3
Blood donors
Afghanistan	40	737407	0.00-7.19	0.60	0.75	0.57-0.96	3046.03 (P < 0.01)	98.7% (98.6%-98.9%)	0.02-2.41
Egypt	116	1566669	0.00-38.20	10.97	10.40	9.59-11.23	24513.7 (P < 0.01)	99.5% (99.5%-99.6%)	3.64-19.96
Fertile Crescent4	157	3488952	0.00-3.95	0.27	0.21	0.18-0.25	3674.2 (P < 0.01)	95.8% (95.4%-96.1%)	0.00-0.67
Gulf5	156	20891379	0.00-27.19	0.89	0.78	0.71-0.86	29882.0 (P < 0.01)	99.5% (99.5%-99.5%)	0.20-1.69
Horn of Africa6	22	48076	0.0-6.03	1.0	0.97	0.57-1.45	327.8 (P < 0.01)	93.6% (91.5%-95.2%)	0.00-3.78
Iran	73	15971802	0.00-3.13	0.24	0.31	0.22-0.40	55740.9 (P < 0.01)	99.9% (99.9%-99.9%)	0.00-1.43
Maghreb7	49	2145044	0.11-6.58	0.65	0.68	0.49-0.91	13475.9 (P < 0.01)	99.6% (99.6%-99.7%)	0.00-2.82
Pakistan	73	1797644	0.01-20.79	3.00	3.47	2.96-4.02	24753.7 (P < 0.01)	99.7% (99.7%-99.7%)	0.38-9.32
All countries/subregions	686	46646973	0.00-38.2	0.86	1.58	1.48-1.69	481819.0 (P < 0.01)	99.9% (99.9%-99.9%)	0.01-5.18
General population
Afghanistan	6	12048	0.00-4.03	0.88	0.61	0.20-1.18	21.7 (P < 0.01)	76.9% (48.5%-89.6%)	0.00-2.68
Egypt	147	110603	0.00-54.10	11.82	13.08	11.51-14.73	8457.0 (P < 0.01)	98.3% (98.1-98.4%)	0.62-36.45
Fertile Crescent4	64	189456	0.00-8.87	0.19	0.42	0.24-0.64	1117.8 (P < 0.01)	94.4% (93.4%-95.2%)	0.00-2.39
Gulf5	85	222829	0.00-22.54	0.83	1.41	1.0-1.88	5343.3 (P < 0.01)	98.4% (98.3%-98.6%)	0.00-7.66
Horn of Africa6	27	29552	0.00-8.50	1.53	1.86	1.26-2.57	262.0 (P < 0.01)	90.1% (86.8%-92.6%)	0.00-6.13
Iran	50	101677	0.00-2.35	0.45	0.33	0.21-0.47	206.9 (P < 0.01)	76.3% (69.0%-81.9%)	0.00-1.25
Maghreb7	42	1378206	0.00-6.16	0.62	0.87	0.55-1.26	7595.3 (P < 0.01)	99.5% (99.5%-99.5%)	0.00-4.38
Pakistan	106	301814	0.44-73.38	6.82	8.81	7.62-10.06	13619.0 (P < 0.01)	99.2% (99.2%-99.3%)	0.60-24.62
All countries/subregions	527	2346185	0.00-73.38	3.14	4.49	4.10-4.90	83750.3 (P < 0.01)	99.4% (99.4%-99.4%)	0.00-16.88

¹Q: the Cochran’s Q statistic is a measure assessing the existence of heterogeneity in effect size (here, HCV Ab prevalence) across studies.

²I²: A measure assessing the magnitude of between-study variation that is due to true differences in effect size (here, HCV Ab prevalence) across studies rather than chance.

³Prediction interval: a measure estimating the 95% interval of the distribution of true effect sizes (here, HCV Ab prevalence).

⁴Countries include Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria.

⁵Countries include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.

⁶Countries include Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

⁷Countries include Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. Ab: Antibody; CI: Confidence interval; HCV: Hepatitis C virus.