The Incidence of Hepatitis E Virus in Domestic Pigs

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is the causative agent of hepatitis E — an emerging zoonotic disease distributed worldwide. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of HEV in Slovakian domestic pigs, as this has not been studied yet. Clinical samples (n = 269) from fourteen randomly selected domestic pig farms for three different age categories of pigs were analysed and the subsequently detected isolates were genetically characterized. The reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis revealed that 32 pigs (11.9 %) of all age categories were HEV RNA positive. The highest occurrence was detected in fattening pigs (14.8 %) and the lowest in weaning pigs (12.5 %). The HEV RNA was not observed at all in the youngest category (the suckling piglets). The phylogenetic analysis revealed that all Slovak HEV isolates clustered into two genetic groups of the genotype HEV-3