Occult HCV and Occult HBV Co-infection in Iranian Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Infected Individuals.

The presence of HCV genome in liver biopsy or PBMC specimens in the absence of detectable HCV-RNA in plasma of the people with or without anti-HCV Abs has defined as OCI, whereas OBI is detection of HBV genome in the absence of traceable HBsAg in the plasma samples of patients. The purpose of this study was to determine the presence of OBI and OCI in HIV-infected individuals. In this cross-sectional research, 190 Iranian HIV-infected individuals were enrolled from September 2015 to February 2019. All participants were tested regarding various serological markers for HCV and HBV infections. Viral RNA and DNA were extracted from plasma and PBMC specimens, and the presence of HCV-RNA in plasma and PBMC samples was tested using RT-nested PCR, HBV viral load was determined in plasma samples using COBAS TaqMan 48 Kit, and also the presence of the HBV-DNA in PBMC samples was tested by real time-PCR. In this study, the prevalence of OBI and OCI in HIV-infected individuals was 3.1% and 11.4%, respectively. The genotypes of HCV in the patients with OCI were as follows: 57.1% were infected with subtype 3a, 35.7% were infected with subtype 1a, and 7.1 % was infected with subtype 1b. It is noteworthy that in this study, two patients (1.1%) had OCI/OBI co-infections. The present study revealed that 1.1% of Iranian HIV-infected individuals had OBI and OCI at the same time. Therefore, it seems that designing prospective surveys to determine the presence of this co-infection in HIV-infected individuals is informative. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.