Prevalence of Hepatitis C Virus Among HIV Seropositive Patients Attending Federal Medical Centre, Bida, Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

This prospective cross-sectional and analytical study was carried out to establish the prevalence of hepatitis C among HIV infected population in Bida –North Central Nigeria, and to determine these co-infections. Total of 250 HIV seropositive patients comprising of 116 (46.4%) males and 134 (53.6%) females paticipated in this study. The age range of participants was 18 - 65 years. Our results revealed that 19(7.6%) patients had HIV/HCV, while 231(92.4%) show negative. And sex distribution of the infection shows that male 8(6.8%) were positive while 11(8.2%) was positive for female. Though there was significant decline in CD4 count of the patients which was particularly associated with HCV viral co-infections considered in this study, a large scale population based study need to establish this fact. Therefore, screening for hepatitis C should become routine medical laboratory practice in order to optimize the benefits of HAART among people living with HIV.