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Abstract
Infection with HCV is considered not only one of the major public health problems, but also as a source of social panic for patients and their contacts, this may be due to the exaggerated interventions by mass media and failure of currently used drugs in treatment of chronic HCV infection.
In Egypt, anti HCV antibodies seropositivity was 11-22% and 66% in patients presenting with hepatomegaly and 71.4% in complicated group as those patients presenting by bleeding esophageal varices or hepatocellular carcinoma. The overall prevalence of antibody to HCV among the general population has been estimated to be around 15-20%.
Various lines of treatment have been adopted for treatment of HCV infection. Currently the most effective initial therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C in terms of biochemical, virological and histological response is the combination of interferon and ribavirin. The duration of this therapy should probably be based on HCV genotype. Serum HCV-RNA should be measured at week 24 to assess response. However, still half of the patients remain uncured due to unresponsiveness to combination treatment or relapse after treatment. New innovative therapy are still needed to enable us overcome the disease or its hazardous effects.