The genotyping results of this study suggest that type specific PCR evaluated in this study may reliably be used in genotyping studies of HCV. Both type specific PCR and serotyping has advantages and drawbacks. Serotyping assay have the advantages over molecular biology based typing methods only in terms of low cost, rapid test procedure and requirement of a few instruments that would be present in any clinical laboratory. However, ELISA is less sensitive and does not allow identification of HCV mixed infection and subtypes. Furthermore, the serotyping assay cannot differentiate between...