Article Text
Letter
Lack of evidence for sexual transmission of hepatitis C virus in patients attending STD clinics in Pune, India
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The presence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA in semen among two of six (33%) HIV negative and six of 15 (40%) HIV infected males, reported recently suggests that HIV may facilitate genital shedding and subsequent sexual transmission of HCV.1 We determined HCV prevalence and examined evidence for its sexual transmission in a cohort of STD patients with observed HIV prevalence of 21.2%.
Consecutive serum samples (n=9141) collected between January 1994 and December 1999 were batched, pooled, and tested for anti-HCV antibody (Ortho HCV 3.0, Ortho-clinical Diagnostic, Germany). As previously described,2 25 μl aliquots of five samples were pooled and 20 μl of each …