Viral Hepatitis and Liver Disease Identification and Characterization ofHepatitis E Virus

摘要

In 1983, a viral agent of enterically-transmitted non-A, non-B hepatitis (ET-NANBH) was identified in the Soviet Union and transmitted to a human volunteer and cynomologus monkeys. Confirmatory data, accumulated by 1988, also identified this agent as a worldwide cause of ET-NANBH, leading to a proposed name of hepatitis E virus (HEV). Critical experiments used immune electron microscopy to detect (1) virus-like particles predominantly excreted at very low concentrations during early acute ET-NANBH and (2) antibody responses to the particles in