Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an emerging pathogen associated with acute viral hepatitis, and HEV is becoming increasingly recognized. Approximately 2% of acute viral hepatitis is caused by HEV, and 18 cases of hepatitis E have been reported in Korea. Of these cases, only two have involved a history of travel from India, which suggests that they were imported cases. The remaining reported cases in...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype 3, which usually causes asymptomatic infection in Japan, induced severe hepatitis in 8 patients. To better understand genetic features of HEV associated with increased virulence, we determined the complete or near-complete nucleotide sequences of HEV from these 8 patients and from 5 swine infected with genotype 3 strain swJ19. Phylogenetic analysis showed that t...

Information about the spectrum of disease caused by hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype 3 is emerging. During 2004-2009, at 2 hospitals in the United Kingdom and France, among 126 patients with locally acquired acute and chronic HEV genotype 3 infection, neurologic complications developed in 7 (5.5%): inflammatory polyradiculopathy (n = 3), Guillain-Barre syndrome (n = 1), bilateral brachial neuri...

We characterized 42 hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype 3 strains from infected patients in France in 3 parts of the genome and sequenced the full-length HEV genotype 3f genome found in Europe. These strains are closely related to swine strains in Europe, which suggests zoonotic transmission of HEV in France.

We reported previously on the complete sequence of hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype 4, isolated from patients with sporadic cases of acute HEV infection in China. At least eight HEV genotypes have now been described worldwide, and further isolates await classification. Current immunoassays for the detection of anti-HEV antibodies are based on polypeptides from genotypes 1 and 2 only and may be ...

Increasing evidence demonstrates that hepatitis E virus (HEV) can be transmitted across species. According to previous reports, swine HEV has two genotypes, genotype 3 and 4, and both can infect humans by the fecal-oral route. Thus, it is crucial for the control of HEV zoonotic transmission to evaluate the dynamics of viral shedding and distribution in different tissues during cross-species inf...

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is a cause of hepatitis in humans worldwide and has been associated with a case-fatality rate of up to 30% in pregnant women. Recently, persistent and chronic HEV infections have been recognized as a serious clinical problem, especially in immunocompromised individuals. To date, there are no FDA-approved HEV-specific antiviral drugs. In this study, we evaluated...

To the Editor: Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is the only virus in the genus Hepevirus, which is the only member of the family Hepeviridae. HEV is the causative agent of acute hepatitis E, a moderately severe enteric disease with death rates <4% in the general population and >30% in pregnant woman (1). The virus is transmitted primarily by the fecal-oral route associated with consumption of contaminat...

Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection among humans is sporadic in European countries. Nevertheless, cases of HEV infection, either imported or autochthonous, have been reported from many countries, including Spain [1,2]. With a single exception [3], autochthonous cases reported from Europe were always due to HEV genotype 3 (HEV-3), which has been found ...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype 3 infections are frequent in Europe and North America, with acute and chronic courses described in the literature. HEV RNA detection by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is the gold standard for diagnosis. Recently, an anti-HEV antigen (Ag)-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) directed against the HEV capsid became commercially a...