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Epidemiological and molecular analyses of a non‐seasonal outbreak of acute icteric hepatitis E in Bangladesh
Author(s) -
HarunOrRashid Mohammad,
Akbar Sheikh Mohammad Fazle,
Takahashi Kazuaki,
AlMahtab Mamun,
Khan Mohammad Sakirul Islam,
Alim Mohammad Abdul,
Ekram A. R. M. Saifuddin,
Khan Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman,
Arai Masahiro,
Mishiro Shunji
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9071
pISSN - 0146-6615
DOI - 10.1002/jmv.23601
Subject(s) - outbreak , jaundice , epidemiology , virology , medicine , hepatitis e virus , molecular epidemiology , genotype , caliciviridae , hepatitis a , acute hepatitis , hepatitis , hepatitis e , pediatrics , biology , norovirus , genetics , gene
Acute hepatitis due to hepatitis E virus (HEV) is endemic in Bangladesh, but its epidemiological characteristics and virological features remain obscure. An outbreak of acute icteric hepatitis E occurred in Rajshahi, Bangladesh during 2010 when 200 patients with visible jaundice visited physicians within a period of 1 month (January–February). Clinical and epidemiological data were collected from these patients using questionnaires. Nucleic acids were isolated from 15 patients who were selected at random to ascertain their HEV genotypes. Near‐complete nucleotide sequences of the HEV genome were detected in two patients and partial ORF2 regions in the other 13 patients. All patients tested positive for IgM antibodies to HEV but negative for other hepatitis viruses. Most patients were icteric and complained of vomiting, fever, itching, and abdominal pain. All 15 HEV sequences formed a single cluster within genotype 1a. Two of the 7,186‐nt HEV sequences were 99.8% identical. This is the first study to report the clinical, epidemiological, and molecular characterization of an outbreak of acute hepatitis E in Bangladesh. J. Med. Virol. 85:1369–1376, 2013 . © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.