Abstract
A hepatitis A outbreak has occurred in Chile since November 2016. Men are predominantly affected, with a large proportion of men who have sex with men (MSM). We describe 12 consecutive unrelated confirmed cases who presented at our healthcare institution in Santiago Metropolitan Area. Nine were men, all reporting having had sex with men. Ten viral sequences, genotyped as IA, clustered with the V16–25801 strain causing outbreaks mostly in MSM in Europe since mid-2016.
Highlights
A hepatitis A outbreak has occurred in Chile since November 2016
Hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection is usually transmitted by ingestion of contaminated food and/or water, but sexual transmission including among men-who-havesex-with-men (MSM) has been described [1,2]
This is linked to periodical outbreaks and a paradoxical raise in acute HAV infection in young people and more severe disease, with hepatitis A being the leading cause of acute liver failure in both Chile and a number of other countries in Latin America [15]
Summary
Hepatitis A outbreak since November 2016 affecting men who have sex with men (MSM) in Chile connected to the current outbreak in MSM in Europe, situation up to October 2017. Ten viral sequences, genotyped as IA, clustered with the V16–25801 strain causing outbreaks mostly in MSM in Europe since mid-2016. During 2016–2017, several HAV infection outbreaks, primarily involving MSM were reported in Europe [3,4,5,6]. HAV infection outbreaks affecting MSM were reported from the United States (US) [8], as well as Israel where the VRD_521_2016 and RIVM-HAV16-090 strains were detected [5]. Since the end of 2016, a HAV infection outbreak has taken place in Chile, which is disproportionally affecting men, and among them a large proportion of MSM. A phylogenetic analysis of the HAV RNA sequences derived from 10 patients is presented
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