Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 May 17;11(5):452.
doi: 10.3390/v11050452.

The Current Host Range of Hepatitis E Viruses

Scott P Kenney  1
Affiliations
Review

The Current Host Range of Hepatitis E Viruses

Scott P Kenney. Viruses. .

Abstract

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an emerging zoonotic pathogen transmitting both human to human via the fecal oral route and from animals to humans through feces, direct contact, and consumption of contaminated meat products. Understanding the host range of the virus is critical for determining where potential threats to human health may be emerging from and where potential reservoirs for viral persistence in the environment may be hiding. Initially thought to be a human specific disease endemic to developing countries, the identification of swine as a primary host for genotypes 3 and 4 HEV in industrialized countries has begun a long journey of discovering novel strains of HEV and their animal hosts. As we continue identifying new strains of HEV in disparate animal species, it is becoming abundantly clear that HEV has a broad host range and many of these HEV strains can cross between differing animal species. These cross-species transmitting strains pose many unique challenges to human health as they are often unrecognized as sources of viral transmission.

Keywords: HEV; animals; hepatitis E virus; host range; virus transmission; zoonosis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References

    1. Teshale E.H., Hu D.J. Hepatitis E: Epidemiology and prevention. World J. Hepatol. 2011;3:285–291. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v3.i12.285. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Batts W., Yun S., Hedrick R., Winton J. A novel member of the family Hepeviridae from cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii) Virus Res. 2011;158:116–123. doi: 10.1016/j.virusres.2011.03.019. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Reuter G., Boros A., Toth Z., Kapusinszky B., Delwart E., Pankovics P. Detection of a novel RNA virus with hepatitis E virus-like non-structural genome organization in amphibian, agile frog (Rana dalmatina) tadpoles. Infect. Genet. Evol. 2018;65:112–116. doi: 10.1016/j.meegid.2018.07.029. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Lin J., Karlsson M., Olofson A.S., Belak S., Malmsten J., Dalin A.M., Widen F., Norder H. High prevalence of hepatitis E virus in Swedish moose--a phylogenetic characterization and comparison of the virus from different regions. PLoS ONE. 2015;10:e0122102. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0122102. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Reuter G., Boros A., Matics R., Kapusinszky B., Delwart E., Pankovics P. Divergent hepatitis E virus in birds of prey, common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) and red-footed falcon (F. vespertinus), Hungary. Infect. Genet. Evol. 2016;43:343–346. doi: 10.1016/j.meegid.2016.06.013. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types