According to our model, some HCV variants, irrelevant to their genotypes, may be able to escape from “1H8-like” antibody-mediated neutralization during the course of natural infections, if the substituted residues in the E2 protein, as changes of alanine to valine at position 524, and serine to asparagine or threonine at position 528, are associated only with antibody recognition without affecting E2-CD81 interaction. The gene discussed is CD81; the disease is infection.