The present study was carried out from Sept. 2010 to Jul. 2011 to detect the viral load and genotypes of HCV infections among asymptomatic peoples and patients referred to the central blood bank, center of thalassemia /AL-Haboby Hospital, renal dialysis unit/Al- Hussein Teaching Hospital and public health laboratory at Thi-Qar province.
Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction Technique (RT-qPCR) was implemented on 90 individuals of anti-HCV seropositive by ELISA III assay. The results revealed that 51(56.66%) were gave positive results for HCV. The RT-qPCR analyses of the positive samples were showed that the viral loads were ranged from 1.19 × 103 to 4.3 × 106 IU/ml of blood .The mean of viral load was 5.9 × 105 IU/ml of blood, whilst, the median was 2.6 × 105 IU/ml. Three genotypes of HCV were detected in patients serum by RT-PCR technique. Genotype 1a (33.33%), genotype 1b (37.25%) and genotype 4 (86.27%) with significant differences (p>0.05). Genotype 4 was the predominant and found in 44 of 51 cases, of those 21(41.18%) as single infections. Mixed infections with genotype 4 and each of 1a and 1b was found in 21.57% and 11.76% respectively. Mixed infections with genotype 4 and both 1a and 1b was found in 11.76%. Single infections with genotype 1b only was found in 13.73%, while genotype 1a was detected only in mixed infections. This study was the first at Thi-Qar province which involved the searching for HCV viral load and genotypes by using of Real-Time and RT-PCR technique.
