genotypes. A study of European, US and Japanese isolates suggested that the date of origin of genotype 1b was approximately in the year 1925. The estimated dates of origin of types 2a and 3a were 1917 and 1943 respectively. The time of divergence of types 1a and 1b was estimated to be 200–300 years. A study of genotype 1a and 1b estimated the dates of origin to be 1914–1930 for type 1a and 1911–1944 for type 1b. Both types 1a and 1b underwent massive expansions in their effective population size between 1940 and 1960. The expansion of HCV subtype 1b preceded that of subtype 1a by at least 16 years. Both types appear to have spread from the developed world to the developing world. The genotype 2 strains from Africa can be divided into four clades that correlate with their country of origin: (1) Cameroon and Central African Republic (2) Benin, Ghana and Burkina Faso (3) Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal (4) Madagascar. There is also strong evidence for the dissemination of HCV genotype 2 from West Africa to the Caribbean by the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Genotype 3 is thought to have its origin in South East Asia. These dates from these various countries suggests that this virus may have evolved in South East Asia and was spread to West Africa by traders from Western Europe. It was later introduced into Japan once that country's self-imposed isolation was lifted. Once introduced to a country its spread has been influenced by many local factors including blood transfusions, vaccination programmes, intravenous drug use and treatment regimes. Given the reduction in the rate of spread once screening for HCV in blood products was implemented in the 1990s, it would seem that previously blood transfusion was an important method of spread. Additional work is required to determine the dates of evolution of the various genotypes and the timing of their spread across the globe. Vaccination Unlike hepatitis A and B, there is currently no vaccine to prevent hepatitis C infection. Current research The study of HCV has been hampered by the narrow host range of HCV. The use of replicons has been successful but these have only been recently discovered. HCV, as with most RNA viruses, exists as a viral quasispecies, making it very difficult to isolate a single strain or receptor type for study. Current research is focused on small-molecule inhibitors of the