Seropositivity of Hepatitis C Virus among Persons affected Leprosy in Korea

Jong-Pill Kim; Kuk-Hyeong Kang; Jin-Mo Park

doi:10.33161/klb.2018.51.1.13

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Kim, Kang, and Park: Seropositivity of Hepatitis C Virus among Persons affected Leprosy in Korea

Original Article

Korean Lepr Bull 2018;51(1):13-21.

Published online: 20 December 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33161/klb.2018.51.1.13

Seropositivity of Hepatitis C Virus among Persons affected Leprosy in Korea

Jong-Pill Kim, Kuk-Hyeong Kang, Jin-Mo Park

Institute for Leprosy Research, Korean Hansen Welfare Association

Corresponding author : Jong-Pill Kim Email : dr_jpkim@hotmail.com

Received 10 October 2018 Accepted 6 December 2018

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Hepatitis C virus, Leprosy, Seropositivity

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Fig. 1.

Comparison of seropositivity between age groups of PALs*

PALs* ; Persons by affected leprosy

Fig. 2.

Comparison of seropositivity among locations of villages, PALs* (observed & standardized)

PALs* ; Persons by affected leprosy

Table 1.

Summary of objects

location	No. of Villages	No. of PALs^*	No. of non-PALs^*
Seoul	2	87	28
Busan	4	186	10
Gyeonggi	2	100	6
Gangwon	1	61	17
Chungnam	2	51	1
Chungbuk	3	64	17
Chonnam	7	168	34
Chonbuk	5	427	30
Gyeongnam	8	242	23
Gyeongbuk	6	301	21
Total	40	1,687	187

PALs^* ; Persons by affected leprosy

Table 2.

HCV Ab seropositivity between control & PALs^*

		Control	PALs^*	Total
HCV Ab	Positive(%)	12(6.49)	475(28.46)	487(26.37)
	Negative(%)	173(93.51)	1194(71.54)	1367(73.73)
	Total	185	1,669	1,854

Pearson's Chi-Square test P=0.00, PALs^* ; Persons by affected leprosy

Table 3.

HCV Ab seropositivity between MB^*& PB^** (PALs^***)

		MB^* PALs^***	PB^ PALs^*	Total
HCV Ab	Positive(%)	336(29.97)	139(25.36)	475(28.46)
	Negative(%)	785(70.03)	409(74.64)	1,194(71.54)
	Total	1,121	548	1,669

Pearson's Chi-Square test P=0.05007, MB^* ; Multibacillary, PB^** ; Paucibacillary, PAL^** ; Persons by affected leprosy

Table 4.

HCV Ab seropositivity between gender in PALs^*

		Male	Female	Total
HCV Ab	Positive(%)	194(31.19)	281(26.84.)	475(28.46)
	Negative(%)	428(68.81)	766(73.16)	1194(71.54)
	Total	622	1,047	1,669

Pearson's Chi-Square test P=0.06, PALs^* ; Persons by affected leprosy

Table 5.

Comparison of seropositivity between age groups of PALs^*

Age	HCV seropositivity(%)
~59	23.1
60~69	14.1
70~79	20.8
80~89	36.1
90~	43.5
All ages	28.4

Spearman Correlation=0.7, P=0.1881, PALs^* ; Persons by affected leprosyy

Table 6.

Comparison of seropositivity among locations of villages, PALs^* (observed & standardized)

	Observed seropositivity (%)	Standardized seropositivity (%)
Seoul	48.3	50.4
Busan	43.5	43.9
Gyeonggi	22.2	20.2
Gangwon	21.7	17.5
Chungnam	27.5	29.3
Chungbuk	35.9	32.2
Chunnam	26.9	27.4
Chunbuk	27.1	27.7
Gyeongnam	20.5	21.2
Gyeongbuk	24.3	24.4

Fisher’s Exact test P=0.00, PALs^* ; Person by affected leprosy

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