Determination of HCV Genotypes in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the most important Flavivirida infections with significant clinical problems throughout the world in humans. Six major Hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotypes and hundreds of subtypes have been identified globally. All these genotypes are generally studied for epidemiology, their vaccine development and clinical management. This thesis comments the frequency distribution of various HCV genotypes circulate in different areas/districts of Khyber Pakhtoonkhaw Province of Pakistan. Out of the tested samples, genotype specific PCR fragments were observed in 299 (74.82%) patient serum samples. The distribution of genotypes of the typeable samples was as follows: 3 patients (0.72%) each were infected with genotype 1a and genotype 1b; 240 patients (80.26%) of genotype 3a; 25 patients (6.00%) genotype 3b; and 28 patients (6.73%) were observed as with mixed genotypic infection. Sums of 116 serum samples (27.88%) were still found untypeable by the used molecular genotyping system. In conclusion, HCV genotypes 1a, 1b, 3a and 3b are distributed in various parts of KPK among which the genotype 3a is the most frequent genotype.