Hepatitis E probably contracted via a Chinese herbal medicine, demonstrated by nucleotide sequencing.
Hepatitis E is endemic in developing countries and may occur as imported hepatitis in industrialized countries. A 46-year-old Japanese man developed immunoserologically diagnosed acute hepatitis E in Japan 4 months after he had made a trip to China. He had bought a Chinese herbal medicine there, taking it occasionally until approximately 6 weeks prior to the onset of acute hepatitis. Nucleotide sequencing of the 3' terminal region of the viral cDNA amplified from the patient's serum by polymerase chain reaction revealed a high degree of homology (99.8% of 752 nucleotides) with the Chinese strain. Thus, the results of sequencing suggest that his hepatitis E was caused by infection with the Chinese strain, via the Chinese herbal medicine.
Ishikawa
K
K
First Department of Internal Medicine, Iwate Medical University, Japan.
Matsui
K
K
Madarame
T
T
Sato
S
S
Oikawa
K
K
Uchida
T
T
D000208:Acute Disease; D001483:Base Sequence; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000032:analysis; D004340:Drug Contamination; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000009:adverse effects*; D016751:Hepatitis E / Q000635:transmission* / Q000821:virology; D016752:Hepatitis E virus / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data
D018076:DNA, Complementary; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal