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. 2019 Jun 14;11(6):554.
doi: 10.3390/v11060554.

Hepatitis E Virus Infections among Patients with Acute Febrile Jaundice in Burkina Faso

Chloé Dimeglio  1 , Dramane Kania  2 , Judith Mbombi Mantono  3   4 , Thérèse Kagoné  5 , Sylvie Zida  6   7 , Souleymane Tassembedo  8 , Amadou Dicko  9 , Bachirou Tinto  10 , Seydou Yaro  11 , Hervé Hien  12 , Jérémi Rouamba  13   14 , Brice Bicaba  15 , Isaïe Medah  16 , Nicolas Meda  17 , Oumar Traoré  18 , Edouard Tuaillon  19 , Florence Abravanel  20   21 , Jacques Izopet  22   23
Affiliations

Hepatitis E Virus Infections among Patients with Acute Febrile Jaundice in Burkina Faso

Chloé Dimeglio et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Hepatitis E virus infection is a significant public health problem in many parts of the world including Africa. We tested serum samples from 900 patients in Burkina Faso presenting with febrile icterus. They all tested negative for yellow fever, but those from 23/900 (2.6%) patients contained markers of acute HEV infection (anti-HEV IgM and HEV RNA positive). Genotyping indicated that 14 of the strains were HEV genotype 2b. There was an overall HEV IgG seroprevalence of 18.2% (164/900). In a bivariate analysis, the factors linked to HEV exposure were climate and patient age. Older patients and those living in arid regions were more likely to have HEV infection. HEV genotype 2b circulating only in humans can be involved in some acute febrile icterus cases in Burkina Faso. Better access to safe water, sanitation, and improved personal hygiene should improve control of HEV infection in this country.

Keywords: Burkina Faso; epidemiology; hepatitis E virus; risk factors.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study, in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data, in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study flow chart.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Phylogenetic tree constructed using 347-nt-long partial sequences within ORF2 (black dots). Genetic distances were calculated using the Kimura two-parameter method, phylogenetic trees were plotted by the neighbour-joining method. Bootstrap values acquired after 100 replications are shown (branch lengths measured as the number of substitutions per site). Highlighted patient sequences (grey boxes) were compared to reference sequences (Smith et al., 2016) and to the new full length of subtype 2b strain (MH809516). Accession numbers, genotypes, and country of origin of collections are listed.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Prevalence of anti-HEV IgG in patients by age group.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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