Hepatitis E Virus

    Hepatitis E Virus - The unrecognized health threat.

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a non-enveloped, single-stranded RNA virus identified in 1990. Infection with HEV induces acute or sub-clinical liver diseases similar to hepatitis A. HEV infections, endemic and frequently epidemic in developing countries, is seen also in developed countries in a sporadic form with or without a history of traveling to endemic area. The overall case-fatality is 0.5~3%, and much higher (15~25%) among pregnant women. A hypothesis that HEV infection is a zoonosis was presented in 1995. Then a swineHEV and later an avian HEV were identified and sequenced separately in 1997 and 2001. Since then, HEV infection include anti-HEV, viremia and feces excretion of HEV was seen in a wide variety of animals, i.e., swine, rodents, wild monkeys, deer, cow, goats, dogs and chicken in both the developing and developed countries. A direct testimony was reported that the consumption of uncooked dear meat contaminated with HEV led to acute hepatitis E in human, and HEV genome sequences can be detected in pork livers available in the supermarkets in Japan. With the discovery of conformational epitopes in HEV, HEV serology was further explored and understood. The phenomenon of long-lasting and protective antibodies to HEV was observed which greatly enhance the understanding to the diagnosis, epidemiology, zoonosis-related studies and vaccine development

INTENDED USE

This HEV-Ab ELISA kit is an enzyme linked-immunosorbent assay for in vitro qualitative detection antibodies to hepatitis E virus in human or animal serum or plasma. It is intended to be used as an aid in supplementary diagnosis to hepatitis E infection, prevalence studies among populations as well as in zoonosis related research on hepatitis E virus.

Hepatitis E Virus Antibody ELISA Kit

Metachem Diagnostics Ltd. 29 Forest Road, Piddington, Northampton. NN7 2DA.
Tel. (01604) 870370     Fax (01604) 870194