Prevalence and Distribution of Hepatitis C Virus in Iranian Drug User: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Study

• Main Authors: Alireza Najimi-Varzaneh, Mohammad Gholami-Fesharaki
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tehran University of Medical Sciences 2020-10-01
• Series: Journal of Biostatistics and Epidemiology
• Subjects: Hepatitis C; Iran; Prevalence; Epidemiology; Drug user; Systematic Review
• Online Access: https://jbe.tums.ac.ir/index.php/jbe/article/view/330

Context: Hepatitis C, as a major public health problem, has serious complications and drug users are the highest risk group for it. Objectives: As the importance of this subject, the current study has been done to estimate the pooled prevalence  and distribution of hepatitis c virus in Iranian Drug User. Evidence Acquisition: Articles were identified through international searching databases including PubMed, Scopus, Elsevier, Google Scholar and Web of Science and Iranian scientific information database (SID), Health. barakatkns, IranDoc, Civilica and MagIran. We reviewed systematically all studies reporting the prevalence of HCV Iranian Drug User. Results: 227 records were identified by the electronic search, of which 62 studies were identified as relevant  papers which were meta-analyzed for the pooled HCV prevalence. Overall, prevalence of HCV  was 42.01 %( 36.83%-47.20%) in Iranian drug user. Conclusion: Our meta-analysis study showed that HCV prevalence is high in drug users in Iran. With respect to the high prevalence of Hepatitis C among Drug User, ongoing preventive actions for this group are recommended.