Journal of Health, Medicine and Nursing www.iiste.org ISSN 2422-8419 An International Peer-reviewed Journal Vol.21, 2015 106 Qualitative Detection of Hepatitis C Virus in the Patients Going Through Eye Surgery Kumar Mahesh (Corresponding author) Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of Ministry of Education, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China Department of Ophthalmology, Sindh Institute of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences (SIOVS) Hyderabad Li Su Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of Ministry of Education, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China Khalid Iqbal Talpur Department of Ophthalmology, Sindh Institute of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences (SIOVS) Hyderabad Aijaz Ali Khooharo Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam Adnan Nazir College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agriculture University, Wuhan, China Abstract Purpose: This study was carried out to analyze the prevalence of hepatitis C Virus in patient going through eye surgery. Material and Method: This was a prospective observational study conducted at the Sindh Institute of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences (SIOVS) Hyderabad from July 2013 to June 2015. In this study, evaluation of 5600 patients of various ages undergoing eye surgeries and being unaware of hepatitis C infection were included. Each patient was serologically screened by immunochromatography (ICT method) for qualitative detection of antibodies for Hepatitis C before surgery. Result: Two thousand two hundred sixty four (40.43%) patients were male and 3336 (59.57%) were female. Large numbers of patients were in 4th and 5th decade of life in both the sexes. Of these 5600 patients, 713 (12.73%) were serologically positive for hepatitis C antibodies. Majority of them were female (58.44%). Conclusion: The prevalence of hepatitis C antibodies positive is higher in our population. Therefore, it is mandatory to screen every patient for hepatitis C and B before any surgical procedure. The surgeon and health care professional should take protective measures. The used infected materials should be destroyed properly. 1. INTRODUCTION: Infection with Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major cause of Liver disease, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Hepatitis C virus is small, with a diameter of about 50 nm, enveloped, single stranded, positive sense RNA virus. The average incubation period is 7-8 weeks with a range of 2-26 weeks. It is primarily a blood borne or parenterally transmitted infection. Vehicles and routes of parenteral transmission include; contaminated blood and blood products, needle sharing, contaminated instruments (eg: in haemodialysis, re-use of contaminated medical devices, tattooing devices, acupuncture needles, razors) and occupational and nosocomial exposure.(2000; Jain et al. 2003; K. 2003; Mahmood and Iqbal 2008; Mileo et al. 2015) Only a relatively small fraction of HCV infections are symptomatic. Most infected individuals remain asymptomatic but often it leads to jaundice, anorexia (poor appetite) and diarrhea and presumably it remains undiagnosed and leads to chronic carrier state. In these affected individuals; almost 70-85% develop chronic infection.(K. 2003; Naeem et al. 2012) It stands to reason that an occupational risk for transmission of HCV in the health care setting, where unknown carriers of HCV are undergoing different procedures, in which there is a chance of contact of percutaneous blood, including transmission from infected patients to staff, from patient to patient, and from infected providers to patients.(Alain et al. ; Mahmood and Iqbal 2008) Presence of anti HCV antibodies in blood indicate that the person is infected with Hepatitis C virus and may transmit the virus to others.(Mahmood and Iqbal 2008) Anti-HCV in hospitalized surgical patients is very high. There is a lack of routine serological screening prior to surgery which is one of the factors responsible for increased disease transmission. The major risk factors include; re-use of contaminated syringes, surgical instruments and brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by International Institute for Science, Technology and Education (IISTE): E-Journals