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Hepatitis E Seroprevalence and Genotyping in a Cohort of Wild Boars in Southern Germany and Eastern Alsace

Hepatitis E Seroprevalence and Genotyping in a Cohort of Wild Boars in Southern Germany and... In the last few years it has been realized that the hepatitis E virus (HEV) is endemic in most industrialized countries and that it is a zoonotic disease. Potential reservoirs for HEV have been identified to be wild boars and deers, but HEV has also been found in domestic pigs and other animals. Due to the probable spread of the virus via contaminated food or contact to infected animals, HEV antibodies are present in more than 16% of the German adult population and rates are increasing with age. We collected blood from 104 wild boars in southern Germany and the border region of Alsace. We found an anti-HEV seroprevalence of 11.5% in our cohort, using ELISA. Furthermore, we observed active infection in 3.85% of the animals by positive HEV PCR in the sera of the boars. In our cohort, no regional differences of seroprevalence or active infection were seen. Sequencing revealed rather close homology of some detected HEV sequences to genotypes isolated from patients in Germany. Hence wild boars are a potential source of HEV infection in Middle Europe and the rate of infectious animals is quite high. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Food and Environmental Virology Springer Journals

Hepatitis E Seroprevalence and Genotyping in a Cohort of Wild Boars in Southern Germany and Eastern Alsace

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References (56)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
Subject
Biomedicine; Virology; Food Science; Chemistry/Food Science, general
ISSN
1867-0334
eISSN
1867-0342
DOI
10.1007/s12560-017-9329-x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In the last few years it has been realized that the hepatitis E virus (HEV) is endemic in most industrialized countries and that it is a zoonotic disease. Potential reservoirs for HEV have been identified to be wild boars and deers, but HEV has also been found in domestic pigs and other animals. Due to the probable spread of the virus via contaminated food or contact to infected animals, HEV antibodies are present in more than 16% of the German adult population and rates are increasing with age. We collected blood from 104 wild boars in southern Germany and the border region of Alsace. We found an anti-HEV seroprevalence of 11.5% in our cohort, using ELISA. Furthermore, we observed active infection in 3.85% of the animals by positive HEV PCR in the sera of the boars. In our cohort, no regional differences of seroprevalence or active infection were seen. Sequencing revealed rather close homology of some detected HEV sequences to genotypes isolated from patients in Germany. Hence wild boars are a potential source of HEV infection in Middle Europe and the rate of infectious animals is quite high.

Journal

Food and Environmental VirologySpringer Journals

Published: Dec 6, 2017

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