Seropositivity of Hepatitis C Virus among Persons affected Leprosy in Korea / 나학회지

BACKGROUND: Leprosy is a contagious chronic granulomatous disease and is a disease that is associated with defects in cellular immunity. A high prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in leprosy patients has been reported in several African countries, Yemen, Brazil and Japan. In Korea, it's seropositivity was reported as 8.33%(2001), 39.3%(2002), 35.1%(2009) and 16.0%(2009) on Korean Leprosy Bulletin. OBJECTIVE: In the meantime, the studies were limited to the subjects in a specific region, and the number of subjects was not enough, so it was not enough to evaluate the hepatitis C virus seropositivity of persons affected by leprosy in Korea. So this study was conducted to evaluate the it's seropositivity in settlement villages nationwide. METHOD: This study was conducted that the mobile team visited the resettlement villages nationwide from 2009 to 2017 and conducted on persons affected by leprosy and residents residing in resettlement village. Obtained serums were assayed by the ADVIA Centaur HVC(IgG antibodies to Hepatitis C Virus) reagent using a Siemens ADVIA Centaur CP instrument. The results of persons affected by leprosy and residents were compared, and the difference of seropositivity among the groups(male and female, multibacillary and paucibacillary, locations of resettlement villages) was evaluated. RESULT: The results of hepatitis C virus antibody positivity of 1669 persons affected by leprosy subjects and 185 residents of resettlement villages were 28.46% in persons affected by leprosy and 6.49% in residents(Pearson's Chi-Square test, P = 0.00). In persons affected by leprosy, that were 31.99%(male) and 26.84%(female)(Pearson's Chi-Square test, P = 0.06) and were 29.97%(multibacillary) and 25.36%(paucibacillary)(Pearson's Chi-Square test, P = 0.05). That of Seoul(48.28%), Busan(43.78%) and Chungbuk Province(35.94%) were highly positive and that of Gangwon Province(20.34%) was lowly positive(Fisher's Exact test P = 0.002). CONCLUSION: In this study, we found that hepatitis C virus antibody positivity rate was high in persons affected by leprosy in Korea. In order to explain the high positive rate, further studies will be needed. Also, through various approaches including assessment of HCV RNA to the subjects who were judged to be positive for antibody test in the future, a comprehensive evaluation of hepatitis C and its countermeasures are needed.

New patient of Hansen's disease in young Korean man / 나학회지

Hansen's disease (leprosy) is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae which affect mainly skin and nerve systems. Currently the incidence of leprosy reached the goals set by WHO in the year 2000. In recent 10 years, only 47 new patients were found in Koreans and their average age was over 70. A 21 year-old young man showed multiple erythematous papules, macules and plaque at face, extremities and trunk. In family history, his grandfather was diagnosed with leprosy at young age and leprosy was recurred when the patient was 7 years old. The patient lived with grandfather from birth to 7 years old. Clinico-pathologically he was diagnosed with a lepromatous leprosy. We performed VNTR both at the skin tissue of grandfather and patient to find out the infection pathway of the patient and found some consistent. Herein, we report a new case of young Korean male transmitted from grandfather.