Dear Sir,

We would like to thank the authors for taking note of our study.(1) As mentioned by Yasri and Wiwanitkit(2) with regard to the viral factor, the Q80K mutation has been associated with use of direct-acting antivirals(3) in the study by Ruggerio et al.(4) Their treatment group included simeprevir, which is an NS3A inhibitor.

With regard to the use of other cytokines, an excellent study has been done by Sghaier et al.(5) However, we did not do this variant testing, as our study was done much earlier. The use of IL2BB polymorphism is mentioned as a “viable treatment option”, and this has been studied in our group previously.(6)

Yours sincerely,
 
References
Soh BYM, Kumar R, Ekstrom VSM, et al. Prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection and the IL28B genotype polymorphism among blood donors and high-risk populations. Singapore Med J. 2019;60:34-9.
Yasri S, Wiwanitkit V. Comment on:Prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection and the IL28B genotype polymorphism among blood donors and high-risk populations. Singapore Med J. 2019;60:323.
Shepherd SJ, Abdelrahman T, MacLean AR, et al. Prevalence of HCV NS3 pre-treatment resistance associated amino acid variants within a Scottish cohort. J Clin Virol. 2015;65:50-3.
Ruggiero T, Proietti A, Boglione L, et al. Predominance of hepatitis C virus Q80K among NS3 baseline-resistance-associated amino acid variants in direct-antiviral-agent-naïve patients with chronic hepatitis:single-centre experience. Arch Virol. 2015;160:2881-5.
Sghaier I, Mouelhi L, Ghazoueni E, et al. Role of TLRs and IL-6 in the outcome of chronic hepatitis C treatment in Tunisian population. Cytokine. 2017;99:297-304.
Ekstrom V, Kumar R, Zhao Y, et al. Real world experience with pegylated interferon and ribavirin in hepatitis C genotype 1 population with favourable IL28B polymorphism. Gastroenterol Rep (Oxf). 2017;5:208-12.