Elsevier

Journal of Hepatology

Volume 33, Issue 5, November 2000, Pages 842-845
Journal of Hepatology

Editorial
Novel strains of hepatitis E virus identified from humans and other animal species: is hepatitis E a zoonosis?

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0168-8278(00)80319-0Get rights and content

Section snippets

Animal Strains of HEV: Serological Evidence and Genetic Identification

It has been reported that anti-HEV was detected in pigs from developing countries such as Nepal (12), China (13) and Thailand (13) and from industrialized countries such as USA (9), Canada (13), Korea (13) Taiwan 14., 15. and Australia (16) Pina et al (11) also found that about 25% of pigs from Spanish herds are positive for anti-HEV, suggesting that HEV is also enzootic in pigs in Spain In addition to pigs, Kabrane-Lazizi et al (17) found that about 77% of the rats from Maryland, 90% from

Novel Strains of Human HEV: Where do. They Come From

Over the last couple of years, numerous genetically distinct strains of HEV have been identified from patients with acute hepatitis in both developing and industrialized countries. In USA, two cases of acute hepatitis E have been reported 23., 24.. The two USA isolates of HEV (US-1 and US-2) are genetically distinct from other known strains of HEV worldwide (about 80% amino acid sequence identity in ORF1) but are closely related to each other and to the USA strain of swine HEV (about 98% amino

Cross-species Infection of HEV: Is Hepatitis E a Zoonosis

It has been shown that swine HEV can cross species barriers and infect non-human primates and conversely, the US-2 strain of human HEV infects specific-pathogen-free (SPF) pigs. (10). The inoculated pigs rapidly became viremic and seroconverted to anti-HEV, suggesting that the US-2 strain is already competent to replicate in swine and may be of swine origin. A Central Asian strain of human HEV reportedly infects Russian domestic swine (33), although Meng et al. (34) were unable to infect SPF

Conclusion

In summary, the article by Pina et al. (11) has provided an impetus for further study of the natural history, epidemiology and pathogenesis of HEV. These recently identified novel strains of HEV may affect HEV vaccine development and diagnosis Although the experimental recombinant HEV vaccines appear to be effective 38., 39., their efficacy must be thoroughly evaluated for protection against these emerging strains of HEV. The current diagnostic assays may not be adequate for the many novel

Acknowledgements

The author's current research on HEV is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (AI01653-01, AI46505-01) I wish to thank Drs Robert H Purcell and Suzanne U Emerson in the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases at NIAID, NIH, and Dr Patrick G Halbur at Iowa State University for support and collaboration I would also like to thank Drs Thomas E Toth and Gholamreza Haqshenas for critical review of the manuscript, and Mr Denis Guenette for editorial assistance

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