Recent knowledge on hepatitis E virus in Suidae reservoirs and transmission routes to human

Abstract

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) causes self-limiting acute hepatitis in humans that can eventually result in acute liver failures or progress to chronic infections. While in tropical and sub-tropical areas, HEV infections are associated with important waterborne epidemics, in Northern countries, HEV infections are autochthonous with a zoonotic origin. In the past decade, it has become clear that certain HEV genotypes are zoonotic and that swine, and more generally Suidae, are the main reservoir. Zoonotic transmissions of the virus may occur via direct contact with infected pigs, wild boars or consumption of contaminated meat. This review describes the current knowledge on domestic and wild Suidae as reservoirs of HEV and the evidence of the different routes of HEV transmission between these animals and humans.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13567-017-0483-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Emergent subtype of hepatitis E virus genotype 3 in wild boar in Spain

“…A total of 57 of 99 wild boar (57.6%; 95%CI: 47.8%–67.3%) presented anti‐HEV antibodies (Figure ). This seroprevalence is consistent with that found in Italy (56.3%; 36/64) but higher than that detected in other European countries, such as Belgium (34.0%; 130/383), France (29.2%; 101/346), Germany (45.0%; 81/180) and Poland (41.6%; 47/113) (reviewed in Pavio, Doceul, Bagdassarian, & Johne, ). In different regions of south‐central Spain, where fencing and artificial feeding have been identified as risk factors for HEV infection in wild boar (Boadella et al, ; de Deus et al, ), seroprevalence values of 5.2% (3/58) (Risalde et al, ), 26.5% (195/735) (Boadella et al, ), 28.0% (42/150) (de Deus et al, ) and 57.4% (62/108) (Kukielka et al, ) have previously been detected in this species.…”

Drastic decline of hepatitis E virus detection in domestic pigs after the age of 6 months, Corsica, France

“…Specifically, the role of insufficiently cooked pork meat and cured meats has been increasingly suggested (Berto et al, ; Dalton, Bendall, Ijaz, & Banks, ; Kamar et al, ; Renou et al, ). As a zoonotic virus, HEV does not seem to have any pathogenesis in Suidae (Pavio, Doceul, Bagdassarian, & Johne, ). Interestingly, there is no indicator suggesting acute or chronic HEV infection in pigs; therefore, viral circulation can be unnoticed in pig breeding farms.…”

Survey for Hepatitis E virus infection in non‐human primates in zoos in Spain

“…Additionally, since there is a direct relationship between volume of food ingested and size of animal, the probability of HEV infection could also be proportionally higher. Ingestion of contaminated water or meat products is considered the main route of HEV transmission in humans (Pavio et al, ) and probably also in NHPs (Spahr, Knauf‐Witzens, Dähnert, et al, ). However, since the diet of these species is mainly herbivore and the virus has also been detected in fruit and vegetables (Kokkinos et al, ; Terio et al, ), they should be considered possible sources of infection.…”

“…Genotypes 1 and 2 are restricted to waterborne human outbreaks in developing countries, whereas genotypes 3 and 4 are zoonotic and have been documented worldwide. Even though pig and wild boar ( Sus scrofa ) are recognized as the main reservoirs of genotypes 3 and 4 (Pavio, Doceul, Bagdassarian, & Johne, ), HEV RNA and anti‐HEV antibodies have been detected in other mammal species, including captive wildlife animals (Zhang et al, ; Reviewed in Spahr, Knauf‐Witzens, Vahlenkamp, Ulrich, & Johne, ).…”