Prevalence and genotypes of hepatitis G virus among hemodialysis patients in Eastern Anatolia Turkey

ABSTRACT

To study the prevalence and genotype distribution of hepatitis G virus [HGV] in hemodialysis patients in East Anatolia, Turkey. Subjects and Materials Eighty-nine hemodialysis patients and 30 healthy individuals were analyzed by using reverse-transcriptase nested polymerase chain reaction with primers specific for 5' untranslated region. HGV genotyping was performed by PCR and three randomly selected HGV-positive samples were sequenced. Of the 89 hemodialysis patients, HGV RNA was detected in 9 [10.2%]. All of our isolates were assigned to genotype 2. Our results showed that hemodialysis patients carry the risk for HGV infection in East Anatolia, Turkey