Evidence for the presence of hepatitis E virus in pigs in the United Kingdom

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Abstract
Samples of serum, tissue and faeces from two pig herds in England were examined for hepatitis E virus by reverse‐transcriptase PCR (RT‐PcR), and a virus strain from each herd was partially sequenced. Eleven of 42 faecal samples and 16 of 21 tissue samples from two pigs were positive for the virus by RT‐PCR. Analysis of two unique but closely related nucleotide sequences obtained from the two herds showed that the viruses clustered in genotype III (6) with a human strain of the virus from an autochthonously acquired case of acute hepatitis in the uK. An ELISA based on recombinant open reading frame 2 (ORF‐2) was used to detect antibodies to hepatitis E virus in 256 pig sera from the uK; 85‐5 per cent of the samples were positive, compared with 58 per cent of similar samples from Swedish pigs and 23‐5 per cent of samples from Dutch pigs.
Funding Information
  • Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK Government (SE0515, SE0517)