Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a viral pathogen transmitted primarily via fecal-oral route. In humans, HEV mainly causes acute hepatitis and is responsible for large outbreaks of hepatitis across the world. The case fatality rate of HEV-induced hepatitis ranges from 0.5 to 3% in young adults and up to 30% in infected pregnant women. HEV strains infecting humans are classified into four genotypes. H...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is responsible for many enterically transmitted viral hepatitides around the world. It is currently one of the waterborne diseases of global concern. In industrialized countries, HEV appears to be more common than previously thought, even if it is rarely virulent. In Switzerland, seroprevalence studies revealed that HEV is endemic, but no information was available on its...

The reported IgG seroprevalence against hepatitis E virus (HEV) in German blood donations is 6.8%, and HEV RNA detected in 0.08%, but documented evidence for HEV transmission is lacking. We identified two donations from a single donor containing 120 IU HEV RNA/mL plasma and 490 IU/mL. An infectious dose of 7,056 IU HEV RNA was transmitted via apheresis platelets to an immunosuppressed patient w...

Avian hepatitis E virus (HEV) is genetically and antigenically related to human HEV. Vertical transmission of HEV has been reported in humans, but not in other animals. In this study, we showed that avian HEV could be detected in chicken egg-white samples. Subsequently, avian HEV in egg white was found to be infectious, as evidenced by the appearance of viraemia, faecal virus shedding and seroc...

One of the five known hepatitis viruses that can infect humans is hepatitis E virus (HEV). The first documented infection that was caused by HEV occurred in 1955 during an outbreak in New Delhi, India (1). HEV is a small nonenveloped particle that belongs to the family Hep-eviridae and the genus Hepevirus. Its single-stranded RNA genome has approximately 7200 base pairs (2). By genomic sequence...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a fecal-orally transmitted foodborne viral pathogen that causes acute hepatitis in humans and is responsible for hepatitis E outbreaks worldwide. Since the discovery of HEV as a zoonotic agent, this virus has been isolated from a variety of hosts with an ever-expanding host range. Recently, a subunit HEV vaccine developed for the prevention of human disease was approv...

The hepatitis E virus (HEV) is one of the main causes of enterically transmitted hepatitis worldwide. Although the mortality rates associated with HEV are generally low, they can be up to 28% in HEV-infected pregnant women, and the elderly are more susceptible. The reasons for this selective severity are unclear, partially because there is no suitable, easy-to-use model in which to study HEV in...

INTRODUCTION Data on hepatitis E virus (HEV) in Brazil are limited. We analyzed 15 years of HEV surveillance data in a major clinical laboratory in São Paulo, Brazil. METHODS The seroprevalence of HEV of 2,271 patients subjected to anti-HEV tests from 1998 to 2013 were analyzed. RESULTS HEV seroprevalence was 2.1%, and the anti-HEV IgM positivity rate was 4.9%. Six hepatitis E patients were...

Type III secretion systems (T3SSs) are central virulence mechanisms used by a variety of Gram-negative bacteria to inject effector proteins into host cells. The needle polymer is an essential part of the T3SS that provides the effector proteins a continuous channel into the host cytoplasm. It has been shown for a few T3SSs that two chaperones stabilize the needle protein within the bacterial cy...

BACKGROUND Recent studies indicate that 27% of Dutch blood donors have evidence of past infection with HEV. However, the low number of diagnosed HEV infections indicates either an asymptomatic course or under diagnosis. OBJECTIVES We investigated whether HEV is a cause of acute hepatitis in Dutch patients and which diagnostic modality (serology or PCR) should be used for optimal detection. ...