Hepatitis E virus seroprevalence among hemodialysis and hemophiliac patients in Tunisia (North Africa).

Yousr Ben-Ayed (1, 2) , Hela Hannachi (2, 1) , Nissaf Ben-Alaya-Bouafif (3) , Emna Gouider (4) , Henda Triki (2, 1) , Olfa Bahri (2, 1)

1 UTM - Université de Tunis El Manar
2 Laboratoire de Virologie Clinique, Référence Régional OMS pour la Poliomyélite et la Rougeole - Laboratory of Clinical Virology, WHO Regional Reference Laboratory on Poliomyelitis and Measles
3 ONMNE - Observatoire national des maladies nouvelles et émergentes [Tunis]
4 Hôpital Universitaire Aziza Othmana [Tunis]

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.

Keywords: RNA virus; dialysis; hemophilia; parenteral risk

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]

Yousr Ben-Ayed, Hela Hannachi, Nissaf Ben-Alaya-Bouafif, Emna Gouider, Henda Triki, et al.. Hepatitis E virus seroprevalence among hemodialysis and hemophiliac patients in Tunisia (North Africa).. Journal of Medical Virology, 2014, 87 (4), pp.441-445. ⟨10.1002/jmv.24082⟩. ⟨pasteur-01081125⟩