Acute HCV infection in Rio de Janeiro

急性HCV感染的识别多年来一直是一个重大挑战，因为它的自然 病程通常是无症状的。全世界都在共同努力， 识别新病例，因为它们提供了关于病毒和宿主相互作用的相关信息。这个持续的项目 已经确定了77例急性HCV感染;其中大多数有症状（80%）， 主要是医疗环境中的医院感染，其次是性传播。自发清除 被记录在54%。大多数病例是由于单次接触，因为没有报告 静脉注射毒品尽管患者早在3岁时就被转诊到肝炎治疗中心， 几个月来，许多患者在急性期没有接受治疗，我们令人惊讶地能够 在少数病例中观察到自发清除延迟。受试者对研究的依从性很高， 通过对患者进行近9年的随访获得， 序列和系列银行标本。这项研究不仅有助于在感染的早期阶段识别HCV， 感染，并为进一步研究免疫发病机制提供了可靠的长期连续样本。 成功的免疫干预和疫苗的未来发展。

The identification of acute HCV infection has been a major challenge throughout the years as its natural course is usually silent and asymptomatic. Collaborative efforts are being made throughout the worid to recognize new cases as they offer relevant information on viral and host interactions. This continued project has already identified 77 cases of acute HCV infection; most of which were symptomatic (80%), and with risk factors being mainly nosocomial in medical settings followed by sexual transmission. Spontaneous clearance was documented in 54%. and most cases were due to a single exposure as there were no reports of intravenous drug use. Even though patients were referred to hepatitis treatment centers as eariy as 3 months, a number of patients were not treated during the acute phase, and we were, surprisingly able to observe delayed spontaneous clearance in a few. Subjects adhered highly to the study and results have been obtained through a follow-up of pafients during a course of almost 9 years, with a high yield of sequenfial and serial bank specimens. This study will not only help identify HCV in the eariy phase of infecfion but also offer confinued long fime serial samples for further studies on immune pathogenesis for future development of successful immunotherapeutic intervenfions and vaccines.