SEROLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF HEPATITIS E VIRUS (HEV) CIRCULATION IN BLOOD DONORS AND PATIENTS WITH LIVER DISEASE IN TUCUMÁN-ARGENTINA

ARCE, LORENA; MÜLLER, MELISA; PADILLA-FRANZOTTI, CARLA; PRESTI, CONSTANSA; MARRANZINO, GABRIELA; DE GOROSTIZA, GRACIELA; AGOTE, FELICITA; VIZOSO PINTO, M. GUADALUPE

Buenos Aires

Congreso; SAIB-Reunión Conjunta de Sociedades de Biociencias; 2017

SAIB

HEV infection is a major cause of human viral disease with clinical and pathological features of acute hepatitis. It affects primarily young adults and is generally mild, except for women in late pregnancy with a high mortality of ~20%. This emergent disease is primarily transmitted via the faecal oral route due to contaminated water and food. Chronic HEV infections in immunocompromised patients and HEV transmission by blood transfusion have been recently reported. There are scarce epidemiological data about HEV prevalence in Argentina and no data for the northern region of the country.Anti-HEV Ig antibodies were assayed by ELISA (DIAPRO,Italy) in blood donors (BD)of Tucumán and in a group of patients(n=17) with high liver transaminases values consulting a private clinical laboratory.For cross-sectional study was conducted in 250 BD. Written consent was obtained from donors and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the UNT and CCT-CONICET. The mean age of the study group was 35.5 years old. Most patients were male (78%). 58.4% lived in the city of San Miguel de Tucumán. 4.4% were reactive to at least one of the disease screening assays (HIV;HBV,HCV,HTLV, Brucellosis, VDRL and Chagas). The overall anti-HEV Ig prevalence in BD was of 4.4% (11/250). Multivariate analysis revealed a clear tendency to increasing HEV seroprevalence with increasing age (Chi-square test, P