Since discovery of Hepatitis C virus in 1989 and starting of official registration of acute and chronic cases of Hepatitis C (HC) in the Russian Federation in 1994 there are a lot of data demonstrating epidemic process development of HCV infection in the country as well as features of HCV epidemiology.

AIM Study molecular epidemiology of hepatitis C (HC) in 5 departments of hemodialysis (DH) in St. Petersburg. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sequences of nucleotides of 93 isolates including 67 isolates from patents of 5 DH and 26 isolates from patients, who never had hemodialysis in anamnesis, were obtained in 2010 by a method of limited sequencing of NS5B region of HC virus genome. Phyologenetic analysis was carried out by using PHYLIP veision 3.69 program package. Evolution differences were evaluated in DNADIST program using F84 algorithm. Phylogenetic trees were constructed by using nearest neighbor and UOGMA methods in PHYLIP program package. RESULTS Subtype 1b was established to dominate in all the DH (69.2 - 92.9%) and the same isolates of HC virus were detected in DH, that were isolated for the first time in 1999. Comparatively higher proportion of isolates of HC subgenotype 3a (26.7 - 30.8%) was detected in 2 of 5 DH in 2010. The same proportion of 3a isolates was detected in the control group. CONCLUSION The fact that HC 3a virus isolates were detected in DH in a higher proportion is proof that they have successfully integrated into circulation among dialysis patients over the last decade. ,

Since discovery of Hepatitis C virus in 1989 and starting of official registration of acute and chronic cases of Hepatitis C (HC) in the Russian Federation in 1994 there are a lot of data demonstrating epidemic process development of HCV infection in the country as well as features of HCV epidemiology.