When I first taught classes about hepatitis C, I would review the hepatitis alphabet: Hep A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Eventually it was discovered that hep F wasn't real. Hep G was reclassified as GB virus C (GBV-C), and is now known as human pegivirus (HPgV), in the Flaviviridae family and a member of the Pegivirus genus. HPgV can infect humans, but we don't know if it causes a disease. Research has been mixed, and includes reports that some HIV patients coinfected with HPgV can survive longer than those without it.
Up until recently, only one human hepacivirus (HCV) and one human pegivirus (HPgV) in the family Flaviviridae are known to exist. That is until now...Abbott and University of California San Francisco published research found a new human virus in some hepatitis C patients. The new virus is tentatively named human pegivirus 2 (HPgV-2), which means that now the old hep G virus is now HPgV-1.
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Labels: by Lucinda K. Porter, Hep, Pegivirus 2