Prevalence of SENV-H and SENV-D virus: epidemiological study in blood donors and dialysis patients.
BACKGROUND
Recently, the identification of the SEN virus as a possible etiological agent of parental transmission hepatitis led to the study of the prevalence of such pathogen agents, particularly SENV-H, in our population. This paper compares the rate prevalence in high-risk subjects, such as dialysis patients, and low-risk subjects, such as blood donors.


METHODS
The study was carried out on SEN virus DNA extracted from serum of dialysis patients and blood donors, and the presence of viral genomes was performed by the nested PCR method.


RESULTS
The results showed a higher prevalence in male blood donors, supporting the hypothesis of an epidemiological role for sexual and also parental transmission, as is clearly demonstrated by the high prevalence in dialysis patients. The result reduced the importance of the possible etiological role of the SEN virus due to the high percentage of positivity in healthy population, and it induces one to consider poorly significant the pathogenicity of such viral agents.


CONCLUSIONS
For this instance, the authors, in agreement with the phylogenically related TT virus, described SEN viruses as absolutely not pathogens and considered them as "simple guests."
Spataro
Pasquale
P
Department of Hygiene, Preventive Medicine, and Public Health, University of Messina, Italy.
Di Pietro
Angela
A
Scoglio
Maria Elena
ME
Visalli
Giuseppa
G
Chirico
Cristina
C
Picerno
Isa
I
Ferlazzo
Nadia
N
Campo
Salvatore
S
Bellinghieri
Guido
G
Savica
Vincenzo
V
Santoro
Domenico
D
Buemi
Michele
M
Costantino
Franco
F
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001782:Blood Donors; D002648:Child; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D005260:Female; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015995:Prevalence; D006435:Renal Dialysis; D022783:Torque teno virus / Q000302:isolation & purification*
D004279:DNA, Viral