Occult Hepatitis C in Different Clinical Settings: Detection, Characterization and Diagnostic Tools

Occult hepatitis C infection (OCI) is a pathological entity displaying different clinical features from typical hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, probably hidden in a high number of unconscious persons worldwide. Thus, the major goal of this project is to address OCI in several groups, namely normal population (e.g. blood donors), patients with viral eradication after antiviral treatment for hepatitis C and subjects that spontaneously eliminate HCV after acute infection by unconventional methods.