Developing and Piloting a Standardized European Protocol for Hepatitis C Prevalence Surveys in the General Population (2016-2019).

A robust estimate of the number of people with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is essential for an appropriate public health response and for monitoring progress toward the WHO goal of eliminating viral hepatitis. Existing HCV prevalence studies in the European Union (EU)/European Economic Area (EEA) countries are heterogeneous and often of poor quality due to non-probability based sampling methods, small sample sizes and lack of standardization, leading to poor national representativeness. This project aimed to develop and pilot standardized protocols for undertaking nationally representative HCV prevalence surveys in the general adult population.

Prevalence of hepatitis C in the adult population of Bulgaria: a pilot study.

Objective: This study piloted a European technical protocol for conducting chronic hepatitis C prevalence surveys in the general population. The pilot study took place in the Bulgarian city of Stara Zagora in 2018, and results of setting up, conducting and evaluating the survey are presented.

Results: A probability-based sample of the general adult population was drawn from the local population registry, stratified by age and sex.