FYI...Researchers Find Cousin of Hepatitis C Virus in Dogs

May 24, 2011

2011/05/23/researchers-find-cousin-of-hepatitis-c-virus-in-dogs

Researchers Find Cousin of Hepatitis C Virus in Dogs

Might lead to better understanding and treatment of human version of the disease

Posted: May 23, 2011

MONDAY, May 23 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers report that they've discovered a

virus similar to the human hepatitis C virus in dogs, a finding that might

provide insight into how the germ evolved in people and perhaps lead to better

treatments.

About 200 million people around the world are thought to suffer from hepatitis

C, including an estimated 3.2 million chronically infected people in the United

States. Many don't know they're infected with the liver-damaging virus that

causes the disease, which means they can spread it to others without realizing

it.

The new findings suggest that hepatitis C may have " jumped " from dogs to humans

more than five centuries ago, the researchers said.

" Considering the origin of HIV, we expected to find the closest homologs, or

genetic relatives, of [hepatitis C virus] in non-human primates, " study author

Dr. Amit Kapoor, an investigator with Columbia University's Mailman School of

Public Health's Center for Infection and Immunity, said in a news release.

" However, " Kapoor added, " while we were analyzing samples from dogs involved in

outbreaks of respiratory disease, we came upon a virus that was more similar to

HCV than other viruses of the same family. So far, we have only detected [the

virus] in sick animals, a few of which had died of unknown causes. Because of

its close genetic similarity to HCV, we suggested the name of canine

hepacivirus. "

Study co-author Dr. Rice, scientific and executive director of the

Center for the Study of Hepatitis C at The Rockefeller University, said in the

news release that the beginnings of hepatitis C " remain a mystery. These

findings underscore the need to look beyond primates for clues to the origins. "

Scientists say there's no risk of modern-day dogs infecting people with either

human hepatitis C or the canine form.

Hepatitis C is a liver disease that's typically spread through contact with

infected blood. It can also spread through sex with an infected person and from

mother to baby during childbirth, according to the U.S. National Institutes of

Health.

The study appears in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences.

More information

For more about hepatitis C, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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