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Hepatitis delta virus (HDV) infection has been granted orphan disease status by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency due to its rarity and relatively limited research and treatment options. Turkey is considered an endemic country for the virus. We aimed to provide a current and updated country and region-specific HDV infection prevalence. In this meta-analysis, we searched databases, including MEDLINE, PUBMED, EMBASE and UlakBim (Turkish Medical Index) published between Jan 1, 2006, and Dec 31, 2022. We included blood donor studies, outpatient clinic studies that comprised of patients without cirrhosis, and inpatient clinical studies that comprised of patients with cirrhosis. Turkey was divided into three regions: West-, Central-, and East Turkey. After a systematic assessment, 41 studies were included. Using a random effects model, the estimated HDV prevalence among HBsAg-positive blood donors, outpatient clinic, and inpatient clinic patients was 3.37% (CI:1.99-6.11), 5.05% (CI: 4.00-6.23), and 29.06% (CI: 10.45-51.79), respectively. HDV prevalence among outpatient clinic patients in Western, Central, and Eastern regions were 3.38% (CI: 2.47-4.44), 2.15% (CI: 1.37-3.09), and 9.81% (CI:6.61-13.55), respectively. . East Turkey continues to have a high burden of HDV. Public health efforts such as screening should be targeted accordingly.
Toy et al. (Thu,) studied this question.