[Investigation epidemiology and sub-clinical infection of hepatitis E in voluntary blood donors in south Zhejiang].
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the southern region of Zhejiang hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection.


METHODS
A cluster sampling strategy was used to sample all blood donors from February to October in 2008 in Wenzhou blood center. Their blood was tested for IgG and IgM antibody against HEV. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) and sequencing were applied to detect its genotype and sequence homology in HEV IgM-positive specimen.


RESULTS
The prevalence of anti-HEV IgG in 3044 cases of blood donors was 33.28%. IgG increased with age. There are certain increase in positive rates between the 20-year-old group and over 40 years of age group from 21.16% to 50.36%. The positive rate of IgM was 0.92%. The ratio of infection among different age group was the highest in the age range from 31 to 40 years and up to 1.90%. IgG and IgM through their negative and positive analysis of samples found in their group with donors age, sex and blood type does not significantly related to each other. Nucleic acids were found in three cases through PCR amplification in all 28 cases of HEV IgM positive samples. The total positive rate was one-thousandth, of which two cases for gene 4, 1 cases of infection for gene 1.


CONCLUSIONS
The results indicate that there was a certain percentage of HEV virus in voluntary blood donors in south Zhejiang.
Huang
Guo-Yong
GY
Wenzhou blood center, Wenzhou 325001, China. wzxzzgk@126.com
Wang
Hai-Hong
HH
Chen
Xiao-Hua
XH
Zhang
Xiao-Mei
XM
Tu
Yan-Chai
YC
Li
Jian-Dao
JD
Zhang
Qiong
Q
Chen
Tong
T
Ge
Sheng-Xiang
SX
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001782:Blood Donors; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006508:Hepatitis Antibodies / Q000097:blood; D016751:Hepatitis E / Q000097:blood / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology; D016752:Hepatitis E virus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006801:Humans; D007074:Immunoglobulin G / Q000097:blood; D007075:Immunoglobulin M / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010802:Phylogeny; D055815:Young Adult
D006508:Hepatitis Antibodies; D007074:Immunoglobulin G; D007075:Immunoglobulin M