TRACING OF HEPATITIS E VIRUS IN PIG PRODUCTION UNITS AND VARIANTSUBGENOTYPES ASSIGNMENT

摘要

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) have been described as the most frequent causative agent of outbreaks of non-A non-B hepatitis in humans worldwide (1). In 1997 Meng et al. (2) reported for the first time the occurrence of HEV in domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domestica). The virus was found to be closely related to human strains of HEV (US-1 and US-2) originating from the same geographical area. The HEV RNA consists of three partially overlapping open reading frames (ORFs 1, 3 and 2). Sequence comparison and phylogenetic analyses have been performed to determine the HEV segregation into four major genotypes. It has been established that the genotypes I and II circulate primarily among humans, whilst genotypes III and IV can be isolated from humans, pigs, rodentsand deer (3). The aim of our study was to carry out a small surveillance programme in Czech pig production herds in order to characterize the detected swine HEV isolates by more detailed genetic analysis.