Surveillance of hepatitis E virus in the horse population of Korea: A serological and molecular approach.

Infect Genet Evol

Department of Infectious Diseases, College of Veterinary Medicine, Konkuk University, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05029, Republic of Korea; KU Center for Animal Blood Medical Science, Konkuk University, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05029, Republic of Korea. Electronic address:

Published: September 2022

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an emerging zoonotic pathogen causing hepatitis worldwide. Despite the prevalent evidence of interspecies HEV infection in various animal species, the role of horses in HEV epidemiology remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the prevalence of HEV infection in 283 blood and 114 fecal samples from 397 horses using sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and nested reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Among the 283 serum samples, 35 were positive for anti-HEV antibodies (12.4%; 95% confidence interval: 8.8-16.8), and four of the five sampling regions (80%) had these seropositive individuals. Analyses of the potential risk factors for HEV infection revealed that racing horses had a significantly higher risk of infection (P = 0.01). However, HEV RNA was not detected in any of the tested serum and fecal samples. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first epidemiological HEV study on horses in Republic of Korea, thereby providing evidence of HEV exposure in the horse population in Korea and specifying the risk factors for HEV infection.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.meegid.2022.105317DOI Listing

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