Patients with chronic liver disease were screened initially for antibodies to the hepatitis C virus using commercially available assay systems. Positive sera were tested for amplification of the 5' noncoding region, and putative structural and nonstructural genomic regions of hepatitis C virus by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Eight out of 22 patients who were seropositive showed presence of viral RNA by amplification from genomic regions. Sera from four subjects showed amplification of the 5' noncoding region, a different serum showed amplification of the capsid region, and three other sera showed amplification of the nonstructural genomic region of the virus. An amplification profile of the RNA-positive samples suggests genomic sequence divergence of hepatitis C virus circulating among Indian patients.