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Abstract
Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is widespread in China, but few studies have been carried out in Guangdong Province. This study aimed to characterize the prevalence of HEV infections among swine, swine farmers and the general population in Guangdong Province. We conducted an epidemiological study that included swine, swine farmers and health examination attendees in Guangdong from 2011 to 2013. The overall seroprevalence of anti-HEV antibodies in swine was 64.7%. The results revealed that growing pigs, sows and boars (OR ranges from 3.5 to 21.5) have a higher risk than nursery pigs. HEV RNA in swine bile showed that HEV is epidemic in swine in the Pearl River Delta, with the highest prevalence of 22.73% in Foshan. Some genomes of HEV strains from each district were sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis of partial open reading frame 2 (ORF2) shows that they belong to genotype IV and are most closely related to isolates from China. In total, 307 participants were enrolled in the study, including 114 swine farmers and 193 attendees from hospitals. IgG anti-HEV was detected in 48.25% of swine farmers and in 38.34% of the general population. Seroprevalence rates were almost stratified by age, with a higher positive rate for males compared to females across all age groups. Women on swine farms appeared to have a lower risk of infection compared to the general population, revealing that the risk factors for HEV infection are not unique. The results suggested that there were other risk factors for HEV infection. HEV infection is prevalent in Guangdong, but due to the small sample sizes, more investigations are needed to assess the potential impact of HEV infection, and many additional risk factors should be considered.
Highlights
The hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a small non-enveloped RNA virus that belongs to the genus Hepevirus in the family Hepeviridae [1]
Sows were divided into two groups to determine if the risk factor for Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection was due to multiparity
The nucleotide sequence identity among the 10 swine HEV isolates obtained from pigs from different farms in three years ranged between 94.3 and 99.8%
Summary
The hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a small non-enveloped RNA virus that belongs to the genus Hepevirus in the family Hepeviridae [1]. Genotypes 1 and 2 infect only humans and are mainly endemic to developing countries such as those in Asia, Africa and South America. Genotypes 3 and 4 infect humans, pigs and other animal species in America, Europe and Asia. Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is widespread in China [4,5]. Few studies have been conducted in Guangdong, and such studies were only for human infections [6,7] Those studies only dealt with prevalence and not risk factors, so it is necessary to identify risk factors for HEV infection. Consumption of fecally contaminated water has played an important role in hepatitis E epidemics in China [8,9]. Evidence gathered suggested that eating raw or inadequately cooked meat and offal from pigs could cause HEV infection [10,11], this transmission route has not been reported in
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