Trends of the incidence rate of Hepatitis C in Changsha, China, 2005 to 2023 and Its Prediction to 2025.

Abstract

Introduction: Hepatitis C is a globally distributed hepatic disease with a high chronicity rate, posing significant global public health concerns. This research aimed to predict the incidence trend of hepatitis C to guide disease prevention and control.

Method: The quarterly incidence rates of hepatitis C in Changsha from the first quarter of 2005 to the third quarter of 2023 were collected. Curve-fitting method, grey model (GM (1,1)), Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model, and Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) model, were applied to simulate the incidence trend of hepatitis C.

Results: The annual average reported incidence rate in Changsha was 12.518 per 100,000. The incidence rate of hepatitis C showed an upward trend from 1.102 per 100,000 in 2005 to 17.172 per 100,000 in 2013 and remained at a high level from 2014 to 2019. It has been steadily declining since 2020. The BPNN model exhibited the best forecasting performance (MAE = 0.394, MRE = 0.203). The prediction results from the BPNN model estimated the incidence rate of hepatitis C to be 9.991 per 100,000 in 2024 and 11.920 per 100,000 in 2025.

Conclusions: The incidence of hepatitis C in the next two years is projected to be slightly higher than that during the COVID-19 epidemic. It is imperative to strengthen various measures to achieve the goal of hepatitis C elimination in China.