Viral Hepatitis and Bloodborne Pathogens Section

The mandate of the Viral Hepatitis and Bloodborne Pathogens Section is to contribute to the monitoring, control and prevention of hepatitis infection through its activities in the area of reference services, surveillance, research and quality assurance. This laboratory also provides reference services for HHV-8.   The laboratory has initiated, and is continuing to enhance, a laboratory and strain identification protocol for HAV and HBV outbreak investigations.  The research carried out by the section targets, among other things, the molecular characterization, epidemiology and evolution of viral hepatitis viruses and applied technologies for the detection and quantification of biomarkers of viral hepatitis.

Molecular detection and typing of hepatitis C virus are performed by the Hepatitis C Virus testing section.