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. 2014 Dec 1;9(12):e113062.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0113062. eCollection 2014.

Seroprevalence of HCV and HIV infections by year of birth in Spain: impact of US CDC and USPSTF recommendations for HCV and HIV testing

Alvaro Mena  1 , Luz Moldes  2 , Héctor Meijide  3 , Angelina Cañizares  2 , Angeles Castro-Iglesias  1 , Manuel Delgado  4 , Sonia Pértega  5 , José Pedreira  1 , Germán Bou  2 , Eva Poveda  1
Affiliations

Seroprevalence of HCV and HIV infections by year of birth in Spain: impact of US CDC and USPSTF recommendations for HCV and HIV testing

Alvaro Mena et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently add the advice of one-time testing of HCV infection in persons born during 1945-1965. Moreover, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) newly recommended one-time HIV testing for persons aged 15-65. Herein, we evaluate the potential impact of these recommendations in a reference medical area of Spain.

Methods: All assays results entries for HCV and HIV serological markers ordered at a reference lab from primary care and specialized physicians between 2008 and 2012 were recorded in a medical area which covers 501,526 citizens in Northern Spain. The year of birth were also documented.

Results: A total of 108,159 anti-HCV-Ab results were generated during the study period. The global rate of anti-HCV-Ab+ was 7.7% (95% CI: 7.6%-7.9%), being more prevalent in men than women (8.6% vs. 4.5%). By year of birth, the highest prevalence was found in persons born between 1955 and 1970. HCV genotype 1 was the most prevalent (59.7%) followed by genotype 3 (22.7%). Regard HIV infection, among 65,279 anti-HIV results generated the prevalence of anti-HIV+ was 1.1% (95% CI: 1.0%-1.2%), being more frequent in men (2% vs 0.5%). The years of birth with highest rates of HIV infection exactly match with those for HCV infection.

Conclusions: The highest rates of HCV and HIV infections are found between 1960 and 1965. Different historical and social circumstances such as the huge intravenous drug use epidemic in the eighties in Spain, might explain it. Therefore, each country needs to determine its own HCV and HIV seroprevalences by year of birth to establish the proper recommendations for the screening of both infections.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Joinpoint regression analysis: trends in HCV and HIV seroprevalence according to year of birth.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Distribution of the HCV/HIV co-infected patients (n = 553) by year of birth.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

This work was supported in part by grants from Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (CP08/00214, PI10/02166, PI13/02266, CM13/00328), and Fundación Profesor Novoa Santos, A Coruña. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.