New Tools in HCV Diagnosis, in Light of the Enhanced Awareness and the New Drugs for Treatment: SMARTube and Stimmunology

Table 2

Early HCV infections missed by current serology and detected using the SMARTube pretreatment step and SMARTplasma as the sample tested.

Population studied	Positive using plasma*	Positive using SMARTplasma	Individuals in window period**	Rate of missed infections***
Suspected HCV infection	56	61	5	8.1%
Populations with high risk of HCV transmission	424	428	4	0.9%
Regular populations with unknown HCV prevalence	157	158	1	0.6%
Healthy donors, low risk populations	4	4	0	0%
Total	641	651	10

*HCV seropositives, confirmed by local algorithms.
**HCV infections missed by regular serology, but detected using the SMARTube HIV & HCV.
***Rate of missed infections was calculated as the % of HCV positive samples, which were in the window period, from the total infected individuals in that population.