Risk of hepatitis C virus infection in a population exposed to biological materials

Hepatitis C virus is an important cause of acute and chronic hepatitis and it is an agent parenterally transmitted. Workers handling biological materials may be exposed to high concentration of virus-infected fluids.

The seroprevalence of hepatitis C virus antibodies was investigated in a population of 809 subjects exposed to varying levels of biological risk owing to the handling of human fluids or tissues and in 408 controls. The exposed group was subdivided in three subgroups according to low and occasional (262), intermediate but continuous (311), and high (236) exposure to biological materials.

The seroprevalence of hepatitis C antibodies was low (1.40%) in all subjects. The risk groups showed no significant differences with respect to the control group; the most exposed group showed a seroprevalence of 1.27%. Age but not sex appeared significantly correlated with seroprevalence of positive antibodies (chi 2 = 5.949, P < 0.025). Aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase showed a highly significant increase (P < 0.01 and P < 0.001, respectively) in subjects with positive hepatitis C antibodies, other than a high significant prevalence of values above the normal limit (chi 2 = 26.613, P < 0.001 and chi 2 = 39.164, P < 0.001, respectively). Among 17 positive hepatitis C virus subjects, 8 (47.1%) were positive for hepatitis B virus, but not for its antigen.

Hepatitis C virus infection appears to be a low risk for people employed in the biomedical field, yet infection is associated with a significant liver involvement.