Avtor/Urednik		Vuković-Baras, Sladjana; Skopljak, Vlasta; Kljajić, Zlatko; Kolja-Poljak, Nikola; Petričević, Joško; Stojanović, Dražen; Mulić, Rosanda
Naslov		Intravenous addiction as a main transmission route of HCV infection in some counties of Croatia
Tip		članek
Vir		HealthMed
Vol. in št.		Letnik 4, št. 4
Leto izdaje		2010
Obseg		str. 728-35
Jezik		eng
Abstrakt		The aim of this retrospective study was to determine the epidemiological characteristics of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected persons and investigate the predominant routes of infection transmission in the County of Split-Dalmatia in Croatia. The study included all registered HCV infected persons (patients and anti-HCV positive carriers) in the period between 1st January 2001 and 31st December 2005. The Control group consisted of HCV infected subjects residing in the County of Istria in the same period. In both counties the male population comprised the majority of all HCV infected (72.6%) and was younger than females. The average age was 31.2±12 in males (min-max: 4-83) and 36.2±17 in females (min-max: 10-77). In both counties and in both sexes the highest age specific HCV infection rate was in the 20-29 age group. The risk of acquiring HCV infection was 1.7 times higher in Istria County. The largest part of HCV infected with known risk group affiliation, 140/175 or 80.0% in the Split-Dalmatia County and 93/101 or 92.1% in Istria County, belonged to the risk group of intravenous drug abusers. There are genotype data for 79 injecting drug users from the County of Split-Dalmatia: 59 of them (74.7%) were infected with subtype 3a and 1a, which are strongly associated with intravenous drug addiction. There was positive correlation between the rate of treated intravenous drug addicts per 100,000 inhabitants and the rate of HCV infected. This confirms the hypothesis that the dominant HCV infection transmission route in the County of Split-Dalmatia was intravenous drug abuse. The same transmission route was even more common in Istria County.
Deskriptorji		SUBSTANCE ABUSE, INTRAVENOUS HEPATITIS C HEPATITIS C-LIKE VIRUSES CARRIER STATE GENOTYPE RETROSPECTIVE STUDIES CROATIA