GB virus C infection in fulminant and acute hepatitis

To assess the presence of GB virus C (GBV-C) in fulminant and acute hepatitis, GBV-C-RNA was screened by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in sera from 33 patients with acute and subacute liver diseases (fulminant hepatitis 14, late onset hepatic failure 2, acute hepatitis 17). GBV-C was detected in two of 14 patients with fulminant hepatitis, but not in any patient with acute hepatitis and late onset hepatic failure. Both GBV-C-positive patients were also infected with hepatitis B virus and both of them had a history of blood transfusion. None of the 15 patients with non-A, non-B, non-C (non-A-C) hepatitis were positive for GBV-C. From these data, it is suspected that infection of GBV-C is not very frequent in patients with non-A-C acute and fulminant hepatitis, and that blood transfusion is one of the important routes for GBV-C transfection, which correlates with the relatively high prevalence of patients co-infected with GBV-C and other blood-transmissible viruses such as hepatitis B and C virus.