Abstract
Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) imposes a major health concern in areas with very poor sanitation in Africa and Asia. The pathogen is transmitted mainly through ingesting contaminated water or food, coming into contact with affected people, and blood transfusions. Very few reports including old reports are available on the prevalence of HEV in Saudi Arabia in humans and no reports exist on HEV prevalence in camels. Dromedary camel trade and farming are increasing in Saudi Arabia with importation occurring unidirectionally from Africa to Saudi Arabia. DcHEV transmission to humans has been reported in one case from the United Arab Emeritus (UAE). This instigated us to perform this investigation of the seroprevalence of HEV in imported and domestic camels in Saudi Arabia. Serum samples were collected from imported and domestic camels. DcHEV-Abs were detected in collected sera using ELISA. The prevalence of DcHEV in the collected samples was 23.1% with slightly lower prevalence in imported camels than domestic camels (22.4% vs. 25.4%, p value = 0.3). Gender was significantly associated with the prevalence of HEV in the collected camels (p value = 0.015) where males (31.6%) were more infected than females (13.4%). This study is the first study to investigate the prevalence of HEV in dromedary camels from Saudi Arabia. The high seroprevalence of DcHEV in dromedaries might indicate their role as a zoonotic reservoir for viral infection to humans. Future HEV seroprevalence studies in humans are needed to investigate the role of DcHEV in the Saudi human population.
Highlights
Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) is the causative agent of Hepatitis E globally and imposes a major health concern in Africa and Asia in areas with very poor sanitation [1]
Very few reports including old reports are available on the prevalence of HEV in Saudi Arabia in humans [24,33,34,35] and no reports exist on the HEV prevalence in camels
1–3 yrs HEV has been considered the cause of acute hepatitis for a long time and is transmitted mainly through a fecal oral route in low socio-economic areas of the world [39]
Summary
Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) is the causative agent of Hepatitis E globally and imposes a major health concern in Africa and Asia in areas with very poor sanitation [1]. The pathogen is transmitted through ingesting contaminated water or food, coming into contact with affected people and blood transfusions [2]. The disease is asymptomatic from the time of infection, but as it manifests, symptoms appear which might include nausea, abdominal pain, vomiting and jaundice [7]. HEV infections are ubiquitous in developing countries as a cause of epidemic and endemic acute hepatitis, the infection can be chronic in immunocompromised individuals receiving chemotherapy, solid organ transplant patients, and HIV patients [8]. The disease is encountered in developed countries as well through ingestion of infected animal products or close contact with infected animals, especially pigs [9]. HEV infections cause a number of extra-hepatic manifestations, which include a wide spectrum of neurological syndromes [11,12]
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