UNCORRECTED PROOF TRSTMH 974 1—5 Please cite this article in press as: Madani TA. Hepatitis C virus infections reported over 11 years of surveillance in Saudi Arabia. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg (2008), doi:10.1016/j.trstmh.2008.08.001 ARTICLE IN PRESS +Model TRSTMH 974 1—5 Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (2008) xxx, xxx—xxx 1 available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevierhealth.com/journals/trst Hepatitis C virus infections reported over 11 years of surveillance in Saudi Arabia 2 3 Tariq A. Madani a,b,* 4 a Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 5 b Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University Hospital, P.O. Box 80215, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Q1 6 Received 11 May 2007; received in revised form 1 August 2008; accepted 1 August 2008 7 KEYWORDS Hepatitis C; HCV; Hepatitis C antibodies; Prevalence; Saudi Arabia Summary This was a case series descriptive study of all subjects reported to the Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia from January 1995 to December 2005 as having hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, diagnosed by detection of antibodies to HCV. A total of 24 948 cases were reported, of whom 19 185 (76.9%) cases were Saudis. The number of HCV infections by region ranged from 16 to 322 cases, with a mean of 124 cases per 100 000 population, or 0.124%. The number of cases reported among children <15 years was 998 cases (12 cases per 100 000 pediatric population, or 0.012%), and that among adults was 23 950 cases (202 cases per 100 000 adult population, or 0.202%). There was a slight steady increase in the annually reported infections from 1995 to 2002, followed by a plateau. The lower number of HCV infections reported in children compared with those reported in adults suggested that perinatal and childhood transmission was not a major mode of infection and that other modes of transmission, such as unscreened blood transfusion before 1990 and intravenous drug use, were likely to be the main modes of infection. The study was limited by being a passive reporting of cases and not a cross-sectional survey. 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 © 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 21 1. Introduction 22 Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is an important pub- 23 lic health problem worldwide. 1 As of June 1999, WHO 24 estimated that 169.7 million people (3% of the world’s pop- 25 ulation) were chronically infected with HCV globally, and 26 that three to four million people are newly infected each 27 year. 2 The prevalence rate was estimated to be 5.3% in Africa 28 (31.9 million cases), 4.6% in the Eastern Mediterranean 29 region (21.3 million cases), 3.9% in the West Pacific region 30 * Tel.: +966 5 55683107/+966 2 6408243 (office); fax: +966 2 6408315 (office). E-mail address: taamadani@yahoo.com (62.2 million cases), 2.15% in Southeast Asia (32.3 million 31 cases), 1.7% in the Americas (13.1 million cases) and 1.03% in 32 Europe (8.9 million cases). 1 Data on the prevalence of HCV 33 infection in Saudi Arabia is limited. The objective of this 34 study was to describe the number of HCV infections reported 35 in Saudi Arabia during 11 years of surveillance, from January 36 1995 to December 2005. 37 2. Materials and methods 38 2.1. Saudi Arabia 39 Saudi Arabia occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula, with an 40 area of about 2 240 000 km 2 . It comprises 13 administrative 41 0035-9203/$ — see front matter © 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. doi:10.1016/j.trstmh.2008.08.001