Assessment of Domestic Pigs, Wild Boars and Feral Hybrid Pigs as Reservoirs of Hepatitis E Virus in Corsica, France

Abstract

In Corsica, extensive pig breeding systems allow frequent interactions between wild boars and domestic pigs, which are suspected to act as reservoirs of several zoonotic diseases including hepatitis E virus (HEV). In this context, 370 sera and 166 liver samples were collected from phenotypically characterized as pure or hybrid wild boars, between 2009 and 2012. In addition, serum and liver from 208 domestic pigs belonging to 30 farms were collected at the abattoir during the end of 2013. Anti-HEV antibodies were detected in 26% (21%–31.6%) of the pure wild boar, 43.5% (31%–56.7%) of hybrid wild boar and 88% (82.6%–91.9%) of the domestic pig sera. In addition, HEV RNA was detected in five wild boars, three hybrid wild boars and two domestic pig livers tested. Our findings provide evidence that both domestic pig and wild boar (pure and hybrid) act as reservoirs of HEV in Corsica, representing an important zoonotic risk for Corsican hunters and farmers but also for the large population of consumers of raw pig liver specialties produced in Corsica. In addition, hybrid wild boars seem to play an important ecological role in the dissemination of HEV between domestic pig and wild boar populations, unnoticed to date, that deserves further investigation.

Hepatitis E Virus in Industrialized Countries: The Silent Threat

“…In Spain the seroprevalence values among wild boars range from 26.3% to 57.4% [165–167]. Similar results were observed in Italy, (29.2% [147] and 40.7% [168]), Germany (41% [169]), Belgium (34% [170]), or Poland (44.4% [171]). Lower values have been observed among deer populations, for example, red deer (10,4% [172], 12,85% [165], 2–3.3% [173], 8% [174], and 1% [170]), roe deer (5.4–6.8% [173], 3% [170]), and moose [175].…”

“…In Europe, high HEV seroprevalence has been detected in swine from Spain [143, 144], Italy [145–147], Norway [29], Denmark [148], UK [149, 150], Estonia [151], Germany [152, 153], or Switzerland [154, 155]. According to the seroprevalence data, 76% to 98% of Spanish swine farms have evidence of HEV presence [143, 144, 156, 157].…”

Surveillance and control of African Swine Fever in free‐ranging pigs in Sardinia

“…However, it has become clear to experts, regional authorities and local authorities that these unregistered pigs, living in groups of tens or hundreds, play a very important role in the virus reservoir and may act as a virus‐link between domestic pigs kept in backyards and wild boar populations, where ASF has been found consistently in the last 40 years (Cappai et al., ; Costard et al., ; EFSA, ; Jurado et al., ; Mur et al., ). Free‐ranging pigs share the same habitat as the wild boar, facilitating the spread of the ASF virus and hindering its control (Costard, Mur, Lubroth, Sánchez‐Vizcaíno, & Pfeiffer, ; FAO, ; Fasina et al., ; Iglesias, Rodríguez, Feliziani, Rolesu, & de la Torre, ; Jori et al., ). The above depopulation actions against the free‐ranging pigs are the first effective actions taken against them.…”

Molecular detection of hepatitis E virus in wild boar population in eastern Romania

“…Different prevalence rates of HEV in wild boars from Europe were observed. Various factors were suggested to be involved in prevalence differences of HEV such as: the type of tissue analyzed, animals stage of infection at the moment of sampling, the different diagnostic techniques, the ecological differences of the wild boar populations and the phenotypic characters (Adlhoch et al., ; Caruso et al., ; Jori et al., ). The prevalence of HEV obtained in our study (18%) is lower than the prevalence reported on bile tissue samples in Germany (68.2%) (Adlhoch et al., ) and Italy (25%) (Martelli et al., ) but it is similar to the prevalence rates obtained from other tissue samples in different studies performed in Spain (19.6%) (de Deus et al., ) and Estonia (16%) (Ivanova et al., ).…”

“…First indications of HEV infections in wild boars were made in 1999, when 17% of free‐living pigs investigated in Australia were found positive for anti‐HEV antibodies (Chandler, Riddell, Li, Love, & Anderson, ) but the first detection of HEV in wild boar was reported in 2004, in Japan (Sonoda et al., ). Across Europe, genotype HEV‐3 has been previously detected in wild boars from France (Jori et al., ; Kaba, Davoust, Marie, & Colson, ; Lhomme et al., ), Germany (Chandler et al., ; Kaci, Nockler, & Johne, ; Schielke et al., ), Hungary (Forgach et al., ; Reuter, Fodor, Forgach, Katai, & Szucs, ), Italy (Caruso et al., ; Martelli et al., ; Martinelli et al., ; Mazzei et al., ), Netherlands (Rutjes et al., , ), Belgium (Thiry et al., ) Sweden (Widen et al., ), Portugal (Mesquita, Oliveira, Coelho, Vieira‐Pinto, & Nascimento, ), Estonia (Ivanova et al., ) and Spain (de Deus et al., ) with prevalence rates ranging from 2.5% to 25% (Martelli et al., ). Adlhoch et al.…”