Occult hepatitis C virus infection in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Table 3 Subgroup-specific pooled estimates of occult hepatitis C virus infection prevalence among multi-transfused patients across the Middle Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean countries

Prevalence by	Number of studies	Sample sizes	OCI prevalenceacross studies		Pooled OCI prevalence (%)		Heterogeneity
			Range (%)	Median	Mean (%)	95%CI	Cochran’s Q	I-squared (%)
Studied population
Hemodialysis patients	14	1480	0-27.27	7.75	9.52	6.30-14.12	64.0a	79.7
Thalassemia patients	2	287	3.31-5.66	4.49	4.32	2.47-7.46	0.9	0.0
Hemophilia patients	1	450	-	-	10.22	7.74-13.38	-	-
Countries
Egypt	8	499	3.33-27.27	12.48	11.43	6.55-19.17	26.8a	73.8
Iran	7	1550	0-18.45	3.31	5.93	3.09-11.09	54.8a	89.0
Saudi Arabia	1	84	-	-	14.29	8.30-23.49	-	-
Turkey	1	84	-	-	3.57	1.16-10.49	-	-
Temporal duration1
Before 2015	7	463	0-23.08	3.70	7.89	4.10-14.65	20.6b	70.8
2015 and thereafter	10	1754	3.03-27.27	7.94	9.04	5.69-14.09	66.5a	86.5
Method of HCV RNA detection
RT-nested PCR	8	1616	0-27.27	4.49	7.79	4.38-13.47	65.6a	89.3
Real time RT-PCR	7	488	3.57-23.08	10.67	9.52	5.26-16.61	17.4b	65.4
RT-PCR	1	60	-	-	3.33	0.84-12.37	-	-
Strand-specific PCR	1	53	-	-	15.09	7.73-27.38	-	-
Sample size
Less than 100	12	767	0-27.27	7.75	9.49	5.85-15.04	40.6a	72.9
100 and above	5	1450	3.03-18.45	5.66	7.05	3.61-13.33	47.9a	91.6
Participants’ sex
Female	6	322	3.7-33.33	8.86	11.56	6.47-19.81	12.7c	60.8
Male	6	506	0-16	6.45	10.74	5.91-18.75	13.5c	63.1
All studies	17	2217	0-27.27	5.66	8.71	6.05-12.39	88.56a	81.93

^aP < 0.001.

^bP < 0.01.

^cP < 0.05.

¹Based on the last year reported for the data collection. If the collection date was not clear, publication year was considered instead. CI: Confidence interval; Min: Minimum; Max: Maximum; PCR: Polymerase chain reaction; RT-PCR: Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction; OCI: Occult hepatitis C virus infection.