Abstract
Hepatitis E virus-mediated infection is a serious public health concern in economically developing nations of the world. Globally, four major genotypes of HEV have been documented. Hepatitis E has been suggested to be zoonotic owing to the increase of evidence through various studies. Thus far, this paper reports on prevalence of hepatitis E virus among swine herd in selected communal and commercial farms in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. A total of 160 faecal samples were collected from swine herds in Amathole and Chris Hani District Municipalities of Eastern Cape Province for the presence of HEV. Of the 160 faecal samples screened, only seven were positive (4.4%) for HEV. The nucleotide sequences analyses revealed the isolates as sharing 82% to 99% identities with other strains (KX896664, KX896665, KX896666, KX896667, KX896668, KX896669, and KX896670) from different regions of the world. We conclude that HEV is present among swine in the Eastern Cape Province, albeit in low incidence, and this does have public health implications. There is a need for maintenance of high hygienic standards in order to prevent human infections through swine faecal materials and appropriate cooking of pork is highly advised.
Highlights
In many developing countries in Asia, Middle East, and Africa, Hepatitis E has become a significant public health concern [1, 2], as well as sporadic cases of acute hepatitis in developed countries [3]
The causative agent of the infection known as hepatitis E virus, is a nonenveloped, single-stranded, and positive sense RNA virus, with nearly 7.2 kb genome which encodes three open reading frames (ORFs), translated into ORFs 1–3, with a short 59 untranslated region (UTR)
A total of one hundred and sixty faecal samples from 3–5month-old pigs collected from swine herds, one hundred and thirty from a commercial farm (UFT) located at Nkonkobe Local Municipality, under Amathole District Municipality, Table 1: Age-dependent prevalence of HEV RNA in the faeces of swine in Eastern Cape Province
Summary
In many developing countries in Asia, Middle East, and Africa, Hepatitis E has become a significant public health concern [1, 2], as well as sporadic cases of acute hepatitis in developed countries [3]. It is a generic term symbolising infection of the liver which is caused by different viruses such as hepatitis A to hepatitis E [4]. Open reading frame 1 encodes for nonstructural protein while ORF 2 and ORF 3 encode for viral capsid protein and multifunctional small proteins, respectively [9]. A new taxonomic division within the family Hepeviridae, due to contradictions
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