Study On Mother-to-infant Transmission Of HCV

More than 170 million individuals in the world, 3% of the world's population, are infected with HCV, and in China, the number is 37~40 million. The majority of HCV-infected individuals will become chronically infected and it is estimated that about 70% of them will eventually develop chronic liver disease including cirrhosis and liver cancer. The typical transmission way of HCV is through blood or blood product. But since blood donors being routinely screened for HCV after 1991, the way of HCV transmission has been changing. Increasing children are infected with HCV by maternal-infant transmission. Mother-to-infant transmission of HCV has been identified and until now, no effective method is found to prevent the transmissioa So, mother-to-infant transmission has been becoming an important way of HCV transmissioa If 35% of the 170 million people infected with HCV are women of child-bearing age, given an annual fertility rate of 5%, then conservative estimates suggest that 25,000 to 150,000 newborn babies will be infected with HCV each year and most of them will become chronically infected. It is proved that mother-to-infant transmissions of HCV happen in uterus or perinatal period. At present, it is thought that selective cesarean section can decrease the risk of HCV transmission in perinatal period. Different from...