Hepatitis in Primates

Abstract

Nonhuman primates have played an important role in the recent major and rapid advances in hepatitis research. Most nonhuman primate associated hepatitis outbreaks in man are caused by human hepatitis A virus, or an antigenically very similar or identical nonhuman primate hepatitis virus. The possible role of human hepatitis C (HC) viruses in these outbreaks cannot be evaluated because the agents have not yet been defined. Efforts to infect a large number of animal species, including the common laboratory varieties, various nonhuman primates, and somewhat more exotic species such as canaries, oysters, and mini-pigs, all met with negative results except for some sporadic and inconsistent positive findings in nonhuman primates, chiefly in chimpanzees. It was observed that nonhuman primates and particularly chimpanzees could transmit hepatitis to man and that “spontaneous” biochemically and histologically typical viral hepatitis occurred in recently caught chimpanzees. A major advance in hepatitis A research was the discovery of virus-like particles that could be agglutinated specifically by human convalescent sera in the early acute phase stools of human cases of hepatitis A (HA). The next advancement came with the description of standard serological tests, complement fixation, and immune adherence for a hepatitis A associated antigen and its corresponding antibody.