HBV/HCV co-infection is associated with a high level of HCV spontaneous clearance among drug users and blood donors in China

Understanding the biology of spontaneous clearance of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection could lead to improved strategies to prevent the sequelae associated with chronic HCV infection. Chronic infections with hepatitis virus are very common in China, but the factors associated with spontaneous clearance of HCV have not been adequately studied. We evaluated the spontaneous clearance of HCV among 1918 drug users and 1526 HCV-seropositive blood donors in Guangzhou, China. Among participants who were co-infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV), 41.38% of drug users and 39.47% of blood donors had cleared their HCV infection without antiviral therapy compared to 9.41% of drug users and 16.73% of blood donors who were mono-infected with a single virus (P<.01). The proportion of subjects who had cleared their HCV infection was significantly greater in the co-infected subjects whose serum HBV DNA was greater than 2000IU/mL than those with lower levels. A multiple logistic regression analysis found female gender, IL28B rs8099917 TT genotype, HBV co-infection and blood donors (vs drug users) associated with increased spontaneous clearance of HCV infection. Although acute HCV infections are common in China, the incidence of chronic HCV may be reduced among the high prevalence of chronic HBV and IL28B genotypes associated with spontaneous clearance of HCV in Chinese populations.