11 research outputs found
Hepatitis C virus seroprevalence in the general female population of 9 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa
Hepatitis C infection epidemiology in Mongolia: protocol of a systematic review and meta-analysis
Importation of Entamoeba histolytica and predominance of Klebsiella pneumoniae in liver abscesses: a 7-year retrospective cohort study from the United Arab Emirates
The epidemiology of hepatitis C virus in Central Asia: Systematic review, meta-analyses, and meta-regression analyses
The epidemic dynamics of hepatitis C virus subtypes 4a and 4d in Saudi Arabia
The relatedness between viral variants sampled at different locations through time can provide information pertinent to public health that cannot readily be obtained through standard surveillance methods. Here, we use virus genetic data to identify the transmission dynamics that drive the hepatitis C virus subtypes 4a (HCV4a) and 4d (HCV4d) epidemics in Saudi Arabia. We use a comprehensive dataset of newly generated and publicly available sequence data to infer the HCV4a and HCV4d evolutionary histories in a Bayesian statistical framework. We also introduce a novel analytical method for an objective assessment of the migration intensity between locations. We find that international host mobility patterns dominate over within country spread in shaping the Saudi Arabia HCV4a epidemic, while this may be different for the HCV4d epidemic. This indicates that the subtypes 4a and 4d burden can be most effectively reduced by combining the prioritized screening and treatment of Egyptian immigrants with domestic prevention campaigns. Our results highlight that the joint investigation of evolutionary and epidemiological processes can provide valuable public health information, even in the absence of extensive metadata information