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Hepatitis E virus seroprevalence among hemodialysis and hemophiliac patients in Tunisia (North Africa)
Author(s) -
BenAyed Yousr,
Hannachi Hela,
BenAlayaBouafif Nissaf,
Gouider Emna,
Triki Henda,
Bahri Olfa
Publication year - 2015
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.24082
Subject(s) - seroprevalence , virology , hemodialysis , medicine , hepatitis e virus , hepatitis a virus , hepatitis c virus , virus , serology , immunology , antibody , biology , genotype , biochemistry , gene
The aims of this study are to determine seroprevalence of Hepatitis E virus (HEV) in Tunisian blood donors and to evaluate its risk of parenteral transmission. Sera collected from 426 blood donors were tested for HEV IgG by indirect ELISA. Individuals were recruited from two national transfusion centers, in the North and the South of the country. Seroprevalence of HEV IgG was then compared with two other groups with increased risk of exposure to parenterally transmitted agents: 80 hemophiliac and 286 hemodialysis patients. Among blood donors, the seroprevalence was estimated to be 4.5%. It was significantly higher in the hemophiliac and hemodialysis groups with 7.5% and 10.2%, respectively, ( P = 0.002). No significant correlation was observed for this IgG 1 seroprevalence between age and sex among three studied groups. These results suggest that HEV has a high risk of parenteral transmission and confirm that the low endemicity of hepatitis E in Tunisia was observed. J. Med. Virol. 87:441–445, 2015 . © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.