title: High prevalence of Hepatitis E virus in French domestic pigs.
abstract: The importance of the domestic pig reservoir for Hepatitis E virus (HEV) was assessed by estimating the seroprevalence and prevalence of HEV contaminated livers in French slaughter-aged pigs. 6565 sera and 3715 livers were randomly sampled from 186 pig farms throughout the country. Taking the sampling design into account, the farm-level seroprevalence was 65% (95% CI 57-74) and 31% (95% CI 24-38) of the slaughter-aged pigs had antibodies against HEV. The individual prevalence of HEV RNA positive livers was 4% (95% CI 2-6) and 24% (95% CI 17-31) of the farms had at least 1 positive liver. Most isolates were of genotype 3f (76.7%) with smaller amounts of 3c (18.6%) and 3e (4.6%). The high prevalence of HEV in pigs and the similarities between HEV subtypes from pigs and humans corroborates the possible zoonotic origin of some HEV autochthonous infections.
authors.affiliation: Anses, Laboratoire de Ploufragan/Plouzané, BP53, 22440 Ploufragan, France. nicolas.rose@anses.fr
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rose
authors.forename: Aurélie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lunazzi
authors.forename: Virginie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Dorenlor
authors.forename: Thiziri
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Merbah
authors.forename: Florent
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Eono
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eloit
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Madec
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pavio
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000914:Antibodies, Viral / Q000097:blood*; D005243:Feces / Q000821:virology; D005602:France / Q000453:epidemiology; D016751:Hepatitis E / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000276:immunology / Q000662:veterinary*; D016752:Hepatitis E virus / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008099:Liver / Q000821:virology; D015995:Prevalence; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies; D034421:Sus scrofa / Q000821:virology*
chemical_list: D000914:Antibodies, Viral; D012367:RNA, Viral