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Hepatitis C prevalence database

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Prevalence data from sources such as population surveys can be a useful complement to case based surveillance data for hepatitis C. Case-based surveillance has limitations as most diagnosed cases are chronic in nature and detection of cases depends largely on testing practices. Prevalence data can therefore contribute towards a fuller understanding of the epidemiology of hepatitis C.

 

Populations covered in this database

  • General population
  • Pregnant women
  • Men who have sex with men (MSM)
  • Prisoners
  • Migrants
  • First-time blood donors

Data Sources

Studies covering the general population, men who have sex with men, pregnant women and prisoners were extracted from a previously published systematic review

Studies on migrants were extracted from a previously published systematic review

Data on prevalence of Hepatitis B and C in first time blood donors were obtained from the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) of the Council of Europe

Some populations are not mutually exclusive. Prison population has a high representation of people who inject drugs (PWID) and PWID studies may have been conducted in prisons.
 

Biomarkers

Prevalence is determined by the detection of anti-HCV, rather than a viraemic marker of HCV chronic infection. Some studies may report other testing but the results are not included in the database in its current form.

Updates

This database will be updated biannually. The next update is scheduled for spring 2020 when studies published in 2018 and 2019 will be added. The database will always cover the most recent ten years of data.

Disclaimer

Inclusion of particular studies in this website does not necessarily represent endorsement by the ECDC. Reports were reviewed for quality, but not all data presented here are of equal quality. Users are encouraged to use the links provided to the original publications when interpreting the results.

An ad hoc risk of bias framework as developed by the original ECDC review team as described in the published systematic review. This framework assessed different domains across populations. See further information under ‘Risk of Bias’ in the Glossary or review the method in the published systematic review.

There could be a long time lag between data collection and publication.

The web service used for storage of the source file is Microsoft OneDrive. Microsoft OneDrive uses cookies. You can find further information about the cookie purpose, the type of data collected, and instructions on how to disable cookies in Microsoft’s cookies and privacy policy. Please note that for this service ECDC has already automatically disabled the use of cookies for “Interest-Based Advertising”.

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Support

If you have any questions related to this tool, email us.