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The burden of paediatric Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection across Europe is unknown, as are current policies regarding monitoring and treatment. This collaborative study aimed to collect aggregate data to characterise the population of = 6 years and 90% vertically infected. HCV genotype 1 was the most common (n 380; 57.3%), followed by genotype 3, 4 and 2. Seventeen children (3%) with chronic HCV infection were diagnosed with cirrhosis, and six were reported to have received liver transplantation for HCV-related liver disease. The majority (n 425; 64.1%) of the European children with HCV infection remained treatment-naive in 2016. Age affected clinicians’ attitudes towards treatment; 94% reported being willing to use direct-acting antivirals, if available, in adolescents (aged >= 11 years), 78% in children aged 6-10 and 42% in those 3-5 years of age (Pearson correlation coefficient -0.98; P 0.0001). This survey provides the largest characterisation of the population of children in clinical follow-up for chronic HCV infection in Europe, alongside important contextual information on their management and treatment. Discussion is needed around strategies and criteria for use of direct-acting antivirals in these children.

We report on our investigations concerning algebraic and transcendental Brauer–Manin obstructions to integral points on complements of a hyperplane section in degree four del Pezzo surfaces. We discuss two concepts of an obstruction at an archimedean place. Concrete examples are given of pairs of non-homogeneous quadratic polynomials in four variables representing (0, 0) over and over p for all primes p, but not over. By blow-up, these yield cubic polynomials in three variables all integral solutions of which satisfy a gcd condition.

For line bundles on arithmetic varieties we construct height functions using arithmetic intersection theory. In the case of an arithmetic surface, generically of genus g, for line bundles of degree g equivalence is shown to the height on the Jacobian defined by the Theta divisor., Mathematica Gottingensis, Heft 16, 1995, revised version, LaTeX2.09