Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Author contributions: Akhtar S designed the study, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript; Rozi S participated in HCV surveillance, helped in data collection, and data management. Future research may focus on factors associated with hyperendemic levels of HCV infection.
Keywords: Hepatitis C virus, Blood donor, Ecological analysis, Autoregressive integrated moving average model, Pakistan. Hepatitis C virus HCV infection poses a major public health problem in developing countries, including Pakistan. However, the results of prevalence studies have shown variable estimates in select groups including 1. A community-based study in Hafizabad, Punjab, found a 6. Using these estimates, Pakistan has been grouped into intermediate category with respect to burden of HCV infection[ 6 ].
Several routes have been implicated for nosocomial and community acquired HCV infection including unsafe injections, recycling of used syringes, inadequate sterilization of surgical and dental equipment, and facial shaving by barbers[ 2 , 7 ].
Public health authorities in Pakistan intermittently run educational campaigns in electronic and print media to create awareness in the general population to halt HCV spread. Volunteer blood donors are generally considered to be the healthier segment of any community and the proportions of HCV seropositivity among them may be considered to mirror the situation in the general population[ 8 ].
We have previously reported a significant increase in HCV seroprevalence among volunteer blood donors over the past several years using data from two blood banks[ 2 ]. However, there is need to expand this HCV surveillance network countrywide to obtain more reliable and representative estimates. Recently, mathematical models have been used to project the future HCV prevalence among intravenous drug users[ 9 ], and its impact on the future development of HCV related morbidity and mortality[ 10 ].
