Epidemiology of HEV Infection in Blood Donors in Southern Switzerland

From 2014 to 2016, the number of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections in southern Switzerland increased dramatically and suggested food as a potential infection reservoir. We evaluated the effects of food control measures introduced to limit HEV infections, assessing anti-HEV IgG and IgM rates in bloo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Microorganisms (Basel) Vol. 11; no. 10; p. 2375
Main Authors: Fontana, Stefano, Ripellino, Paolo, Niederhauser, Christoph, Widmer, Nadja, Gowland, Peter, Petrini, Orlando, Aprile, Manuela, Merlani, Giorgio, Bihl, Florian
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Basel MDPI AG 22.09.2023
MDPI
Subjects:
Antibodies
Asymptomatic
Blood
Blood & organ donations
Blood donors
Blood-borne diseases
Epidemics
Epidemiology
Food
food availability
Food chains
Food products
food safety
Food supply
Health aspects
Hepatitis
Hepatitis E
Hogs
Immunoglobulin G
Immunoglobulin M
Infections
Infectious diseases
Liver diseases
NAT testing
Nucleic acids
Orthohepevirus A
Population
Pork
Product testing
provenance
risk
Risk factors
Rural areas
Serology
seroprevalence
Statistical analysis
Statistics
Supply chains
Switzerland
transfusion safety
Urban areas
Germany
Switzerland
ISSN:2076-2607, 2076-2607
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Summary:From 2014 to 2016, the number of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections in southern Switzerland increased dramatically and suggested food as a potential infection reservoir. We evaluated the effects of food control measures introduced to limit HEV infections, assessing anti-HEV IgG and IgM rates in blood donors before and after the implementation of food control measures in 2017. From 2012 to 2013, we screened 1283, and from 2017 to 2019, we screened 1447 donors for IgG and IgM antibodies. No statistically significant differences were detected for IgG (32.8% from 2012 to 2013 vs. 31.1% from 2017 to 2019, p = 0.337) or IgM rates (2.0% from 2012 to 2013 vs. 2.8% from 2017 to 2019, p = 0.21). Rural provenience and age > 66 are predictors for positive IgG serology. A total of 5.9% of 303 donors included in both groups lost IgG positivity. We also determined nucleic acid testing (NAT) rates after the introduction of this test in 2018, comparing 49,345 donation results from southern Switzerland with those of 625,559 Swiss donor controls, and only 9 NAT-positive donors were found from 2018 to 2023. The high HEV seroprevalence in southern Switzerland may depend on different food supply chains in rural and urban areas. Local preventive measures probably have a limited impact on blood HEV risk; thus, continuous NAT testing is recommended.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:2076-2607
2076-2607
DOI:10.3390/microorganisms11102375