Burden of HCV among Prevalent Hemodialysis Patients after National Egyptian HCV Eradication Program in El-Dakhlia Government

Abstract Background Egypt has aimed to treat 250000 people annually up to 2020 in the first phase of their treatment program aiming at reducing the number of viremic patients, thus limiting the ongoing HCV transmission. Egypt is struggling to eliminate HCV and HCV-related morbidity by 2030. Aim and Objectives to measure the frequency rate of HCV infection among ESRD patients and identify the reasons of un-treatment among those who were offered the treatment free of charge. Subjects and Methods This multi-center cross sectional study included 500 patients receiving hemodialysis sessions on regular basis for more than 3 months in Dakahlia Governorate, patient recruitment from November 2022 to April 2023. Result According to patients` medical history we found that, 23.4% of patients had previous HCV infection from them 12.6% received treatment and 10.8% didn`t receive treatment due to several causes as one patient didn`t know about the drug availability, five patients (1%) fear from occurrence of side effects, 43 patients (8.6%) didn`t need treatment and five patients (1%) had other causes as had contraindication of drugs, non-compliance and deterioration of health status. Also, 20.4% of patients had been informed that they completely recovered and 0.8% had recurrence. After investigations, 1% of patients had positive HbsAg, 23.4% had positive HCV Ab, 4.2% positive HCV PCR. Conclusion The low prevalence of HCV among hemodialysis patients of HCV in HD patients confirm that HCV infection doesn’t become a major health problem among patients on maintenance HD.