New hepatitis bug in blood faces probe Virus has no clear health impact
Red Cross and federal health officials plan to study the impact of a new bug in Canada’s blood supply – the hepatitis G virus, a microbe discovered less than two years ago. There’s no need for panic since the virus has no clear health impact and has likely been in the blood supply for decades, Dr. Antonio Giulivi, Red Cross associate director of medical and scientific affairs, said yesterday.
“That doesn’t mean we don’t do anything about it,” he said. “We are looking at it seriously. We don’t want to be caught off guard.”
The Laboratory Centre for Disease Control in Ottawa and the Red Cross plan to test blood samples from about 1,800 donors to learn the extent of this microbe’s circulation.
And they plan to follow recipients of blood infected with hepatitis G for several years to see if it causes any long-term health problems, Giulivi said.
In the United States and Europe, about 2 per cent of donors “are positive for hep. G,” he said. “It is transmitted by blood, that’s for sure.”
What isn’t certain is how the virus might harm humans, Giulivi said.
Japanese data have linked the microbe to liver failure in a small number of cases, said Dr. Paul Gully, chief of the blood- borne pathogens division of the centre for disease control. But the vast majority of people with this virus seem to show no symptoms.
The planned follow-up on recipients of blood infected by hepatitis G would show the virus’s effects, Giulivi said. “Our purpose is to see what happens in 10 or 20, years. No one has done that in the world.”
That’s to start as soon as final approval is received from the University of Toronto ethics committee, he said.
In Canada, donated blood is tested for HIV and hepatitis B and C. The new study should indicate if it would be worthwhile to add a test for hepatitis G.
Giulivi said Canadian researchers already have tested blood samples from transplant patients, people who have other types of hepatitis and people with conditions like thalassemia who have received lots of blood.
“We’re finding only a minority of these people are hepatitis G positive,” he said. “And of those who are positive, there’s no liver disease.”
Scientists also have checked to see if hepatitis G is a factor that worsens other diseases.
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