Inquiries on intraspousal transmission of hepatitis C virus: benefits and limitations of genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis

During recent years, courts had to decide in some notable cases whether or not defendants infected the plaintiffs with HIV. Lawsuits on the transmissi on of other viral pathogens up to now have hardly become known. We report h ere on the use of genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis to investigat e possible intraspousal transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV). The high d egree of genetic relatedness observed in phylogenetic analysis among the HC V strains isolated from the couple demonstrates that the man and the woman are infected with the same isolate of the virus. After other plausible rout es of infection have been virtually excluded by anamnestic and conventional epidemiological evaluation we could infer that the man most probably has i nfected his girlfriend with HCV. This conclusion was further supported by t he finding that both are also infected with closely related isolates of GR virus C (GBV-C). Thus, the results from molecular biological investigations and epidemiological evaluation are complementary pieces of evidence in inq uiries on possible intraspousal transmission of HCV (C) 1999 Elsevier Scien ce Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.