Fig. 1

Flow diagram of study cohort selection. From a total of 1252 residents of Wangying Village, Shangcai County, 190 anti-HCV-positive female Chinese Han individuals were initially recruited to the study after screening. Of these 190 subjects, 53 HIV-positive women with chronic HCV infections were excluded. The remaining 137 females constituted the primary cohort, which consisted of “Chronic” (HIV- HCV carriers, n = 64) and “Resolved” (total n = 73: HIV+ HCV resolvers, n = 28, and HIV- HCV resolvers, n = 45) groups. An IFNL3 favorable sub-cohort was also constructed by exclusion of women with unfavorable IFNL3 genotypes (rs12979860 TC/TT, rs80999917 TG/TT, and rs12980275AG/GG; “Chronic”, n = 54, and “Resolved”, n = 67)