Table 2.
Demographics of clinical cohorts tested
| Exposed uninfected (EU)n=42 | Chronic HCV gt 1 (CHCV)n=8a | Healthy controls (HC)n=8 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean age at sampling | 34±8.3 | 52±6.3 | 47±18.2 |
| Ethnicity (% Caucasian) | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| Sex (% Male) | 89 | 63 | 50 |
| Current IDU (%) | 100 | – | 0 |
| Mean age at commencing IDU (years±SD) | 21.8±5.2 | ND | N/A |
| Mean lifetime injecting episodes (range) | 4128 (52–21 900) | ND | N/A |
| Duration of IDU (years±SD) | 7.6±4.3 | ND | N/A |
| Sharing needles/syringes (%) | 72 | ND | N/A |
| Sharing any injection equipment (%) | 100 | ND | N/A |
| Sharing with IDU known to suffer from HCV infection (%) | 28.5 | ND | N/A |
ND, not determined; N/A, not applicable.
a
The majority of CHCV patients listed their likely source of infection as IDU; however, detailed data on historical and present injected behaviour were not collected. Within the CHCV group, the estimated median duration of infection was 31 years, with all individuals having been infected for a minimum of 6 months prior to study recruitment.