Hepatitis E Virus Infection in Bulgaria: A Brief Analysis of the Situation in the Country

Baymakova, Magdalena; Popov, G; Pepovich, R.; Tsachev, И.

doi:10.3889/oamjms.2019.073

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…A retrospective study of acute viral hepatitis performed in Sofia (2004-2012) found anti-HEV IgM/IgG antibodies in 2.48% patients[23]. HEV infection more frequently affected males (61%-69%), with the highest incidence in persons over 50 years of age[23,24]. Another study in the North-Eastern Bulgaria (2012-2016) analyzed the prevalence of HEV infection in hospitalized patients with clinical symptoms of acute hepatitis and outpatients with laboratory data of liver dysfunction.…”

Section: Bulgariamentioning

confidence: 99%

Epidemiology of hepatitis E in South-East Europe in the "One Health" concept

Mrzljak¹,

Dinjar-Kujundzic²,

Jemeršić³

et al. 2019

WJG

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The significance of hepatitis E virus (HEV) as an important public health problem is rising. Until a decade ago, cases of HEV infection in Eur-ope were mainly confined to returning travelers, but nowadays, hepatitis E represents an emerging zoonotic infection in many European countries. The aim of this manuscript is to perform a systematic review of the published literature on hepatitis E distribution in humans, animals and environmental samples ("One Health" concept) in the South-Eastern European countries. Comparison of the available data showed that the anti-HEV seroprevalence in the South-Eastern Europe varies greatly, depending on the population studied, geographical area and methods used. The IgG seroprevalence rates in different population groups were found to be 1.1%-24.5% in Croatia, up to 20.9% in Bulgaria, 5.9-%17.1% in Romania, 15% in Serbia, up to 9.7% in Greece and 2%-9.7% in Albania. Among possible risk factors, older age was the most significant predictor for HEV seropositivity in most studies. Higher seroprevalence rates were found in animals. HEV IgG antibodies in domestic pigs were detected in 20%-54.5%, 29.2%-50%, 38.94%-50% and 31.1%-91.7% in Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia, respectively. In wild boars seroprevalence rates were up to 10.3%, 30.3% and 31.1% in Romania, Slovenia and Croatia, respectively. A high HEV RNA prevalence in wild boars in some countries (Croatia and Romania) indicated that wild boars may have a key role in the HEV epidemiology. There are very few data on HEV prevalence in environmental samples. HEV RNA was detected in 3.3% and 16.7% surface waters in Slovenia and Serbia, respectively. There is no evidence of HEV RNA in sewage systems in this region. The available data on genetic characterization show that human, animal and environmental HEV strains mainly belong to the genotype 3.

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Section: Bulgariamentioning

confidence: 99%

Epidemiology of hepatitis E in South-East Europe in the "One Health" concept

Mrzljak¹,

Dinjar-Kujundzic²,

Jemeršić³

et al. 2019

WJG

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“…Several seroprevalence studies on industrial pigs, domestic pigs, and wild boars have shown a high prevalence of HEV infection among animals in Bulgaria [ 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. The established HEV seropositivity among industrial pigs varies from 40.0% to 60.3% [ 21 , 22 , 23 ], in domestic pigs—60.05% [ 24 ], and among wild boars—from 12.5% to 40.8% [ 24 , 25 ]. The prevalence of HEV in the only aboriginal pig breed (East Balkan swine) in Bulgaria was evaluated, and a high HEV seropositivity of 82.5% was found [ 26 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seroprevalence of Hepatitis E Virus Infection among Blood Donors in Bulgaria

Baymakova

Terzieva

Popov

et al. 2021

Viruses

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Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is widespread among domestic pigs, industrial swine, and wild boars in Bulgaria. The aim of the current research was to present the HEV seroprevalence among blood donors in Bulgaria. In the present study, 555 blood donors (479 males and 76 females) were enrolled from five districts in the country (Shumen, Pleven, Stara Zagora, Plovdiv, and Sofia districts). All blood samples were tested for anti-HEV IgG using the recomWell HEV IgG ELISA test (Mikrogen GmbH, Neuried, Germany). Each participating donor completed a short, structured, and specific questionnaire to document data on the current study. Anti-HEV IgG positive results were detected in 144 (25.9%) blood donors, including 129 (26.9%) males and 15 (19.7%) females. The established HEV seropositivity was 28.8% (23/80) in Shumen district, 23.2% (22/95) in Pleven district, 27.1% (38/140) in Stara Zagora district, 27.5% (44/160) in Plovdiv district, and 21.3% (17/80) in Sofia district. A high HEV seroprevalence was found for persons who declared that they were general hunters (48.7%; 19/39; p = 0.001) and hunters of wild boars (51.6%; 16/31; p = 0.001). We present the first seroprevalence rates of HEV infection in blood donors from Bulgaria. The results of our research showed high HEV seropositivity among blood donors.

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“…The few papers are traceable to the low prevalence of the disease in the world of which the studied country is a particular case. A similar investigation has been done and can be found in [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Hepatitis E Infection in Nigeria: A Systematic Review

Okagbue¹,

Adamu²,

Bishop³

et al. 2019

Open Access Maced J Med Sci

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BACKGROUND: Research done globally on hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is far fewer compared with other types of hepatitis virus infection. Little is known on the prevalence of HEV in Nigeria. AIM: The present study presents the prevalence of HEV infection in Nigeria from a few available research papers on HEV. The detailed statistical analysis was used to analyse the prevalence of HEV in humans and animals. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A literature search in Web of Science, Scopus and PubMed databases was done, and a final 7 articles were selected. Minitab 17.0 was used to perform the correlational and binary logistic analyses. RESULTS: Serum and faecal analysis of blood and stool samples of 1178 humans and 210 pigs (animals) were done, and the presence of anti-HEV IgG or HEV RNA in the study samples were 127 and 138 respectively. Further analysis showed the prevalence of HEV are 10.8% and 65.7% in humans and animals, respectively. Weak positive non-significant association (r = 0.327, p-value = 0.474) was obtained between the target (humans and animal) and the HEV infection (positive) groups. The application of binary logistic regression yielded an equation that can be used to predict the target group from the HEV positive humans or animals. Generally, the logistic model was not statistically significant (p-value = 0.376), and the model was able to explain 9.3% of the deviation or variability of the model. The odds ratio is OR = 1.0344 with 0.9550, 1.204 95% Confidence Interval (CI). Thus, in Nigeria, the odds of prevalence of HEV in animals are 1.0344 higher than humans. CONCLUSION: The risk factors obtained from the few available articles are consistent with the global epidemiology of HEV infection. Food and animal handlers and those that consume unsafe water are the key people at risk of HEV infection in Nigeria.

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Hepatitis E Virus Infection in Bulgaria: A Brief Analysis of the Situation in the Country

Cited by 9 publications

References 10 publications

Epidemiology of hepatitis E in South-East Europe in the "One Health" concept

Epidemiology of hepatitis E in South-East Europe in the "One Health" concept

Seroprevalence of Hepatitis E Virus Infection among Blood Donors in Bulgaria

Hepatitis E Infection in Nigeria: A Systematic Review

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