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

Table 3 Univariable and multivariable meta-regression models for HCV Ab prevalence among blood donors and the general population in Middle East and North Africa

	Studies	Samples		Univariable analysis				Multivariable analysisb
	Total (n)	Total (n)	RR (95%CI)		P value	F P valuea	Variance explained R2 (%)	ARR (95%CI)	P value
Subpopulations
Blood donors	686	46646973	1		-			1	-
The general population	527	2346185	2.92 (2.41-3.55)		< 0.001	< 0.001	10.73	1.72 (1.50-1.97)	< 0.001
Country/subregion
Afghanistan	46	749455	1		-			1	-
Egypt	263	1677272	14.89 (10.2-21.8)		< 0.001			9.48 (6.54-13.75)	< 0.001
Fertile Crescent1	221	3678408	0.52 (0.35-0.77)		< 0.001			0.49 (0.34-0.72)	< 0.001
Gulf2	241	21114208	1.24 (0.84-1.82)		0.280			0.82 (0.56-1.19)	0.398
Horn of Africa3	49	77628	2.05 (1.25-3.37)		0.005			1.33 (0.82-2.15)	0.244
Iran	123	16073479	0.50 (0.33-0.77)		< 0.001			0.42 (0.28-0.63)	< 0.001
Maghreb4	91	3523250	1.02 (0.66-1.56)		0.936			0.77 (0.51-1.16)	0.207
Pakistan	179	2099458	6.96 (4.71-10.29)		< 0.001	< 0.001	58.39	5.44 (3.73-7.93)	< 0.001
Year of data collection	1213	48993158	0.95 (0.94-0.97)		< 0.001	< 0.001	3.71	0.96 (0.95-0.97)	< 0.001

¹Countries include Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria.

²Countries include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.

³Countries include Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

⁴Countries include Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia.

^aVariables with P ≤ 0.2 were eligible for inclusion in the multivariable analysis.

^bThe adjusted R-squared for the full model was 62.65%.

Ab: Antibody; ARR: Adjusted relative risk; CI: Confidence interval; RR: Relative risk.