Hepatitis C in several risk groups of Kosovo.

Introduction: Infections with hepatitis C are on the rise. The statistics on the general population of Kosovo infected with hepatitis C is lacking. The study tends to detect sero-prevalence in the following risk groups: haemodialysis patients; patients of surgical units, internal medicine units, and mental health units; HIV-diagnosed patients, health professionals, and women in the prenatal period. A number of institutions, providers of medical care to these groups' patients, have been targeted.

Methodology: A total of 378 samples were collected from various institutions, with 347 of them being tested for anti-HCV and 31 being tested for RT-PCR assays.

Results: From the total of 387 samples, 72 samples (19.05%) resulted positive. The highest number was recorded in haemodialysis centres. In other groups, a low prevalence was recorded.

Conclusions: The study can conclude that high prevalence of HCV infection still remains a major health problem, especially in haemodialysis centres. In the future, it is planned to expand the study in the future to include other risk categories or the entire population.