[Prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection in pregnant women]

A serological investigation of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection was carried out in 1,436 cases of pregnant women in Chongqing. First of all, anti-HCV antibody in serum samples was screened using ELISA method with synthetic peptides responding to core region and nonstructural region of HCV antigen. Then the positive serum was further confirmed by recombinant immunoblot assay (RIBA) including 4 kinds of HCV recombinant antigen. Sequence of HCV ribonucleic acid (HCV-RNA) was also identified by reverse transcriptive-nested polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). 16 cases (1.11%) have been confirmed to be infected with HCV, sequence of HCV-RNA was found in 14 cases and 6 of them showed HBV-DNA positive. The incidence of HCV infection in pregnant women was significantly lower than that of HBV infection. However, a remarkably higher incidence of HCV infection in pregnant women with HBV infection than without HBV was noticed.