الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections are major causes of liver diseases and are one of the leading cause for liver cirrhosis and even hepatocellular carcinoma worldwide. Egypt has the highest and devastating prevalence of HCV in the world, amounting to 14-20%. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial epidemiological methods may provide a more feasible basis for screening interventions through the identification of hotspots as well as demographic and socio-economic determinants. The application of GIS is essential to display the spatial heterogeneity of disease risk and to quantify the impact of socio-economic determinants on the incidence of infectious diseases. Exploratory disease mapping and local cluster tests have shown to help identifying areas with statistically significant high risks (often referred to as hotspots or clusters) for prioritizing future interventions for Hepatitis C.
The present study was conducted to portray the geographical distribution of HCV infection in Alexandria sub districts, to identify HCV infection cluster areas and to demonstrate some of the socio demographic characteristics of the identified cluster areas.
To accomplish these aims, the records of all blood donors at the Medical Research Institute and Kom Eldeka blood banks in Alexandria governorate, During the previous six years were reviewed to collect data about the demographic information for all the blood donors and some of the socio demographic factors for those who are found to be positive HCV infection. This information was then used for the development of spatial representation of data and cluster analysis for HCV infection prevalence in the districts and subdistricts of Alexandria governorate.