Prevalence of hepatitis E virus antibodies in pigs in Northern Italy

Abstract

The prevalence of the hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection in pigs in Northern Italy was serologically examined. The survey was carried out on 39 farms: 17 farrow-to-feeder, 10 farrow-to-finish, and 12 fattening enterprises. There were 1,422 sera that were tested using commercial indirect ELISA. This method originally developed for testing human sera was adapted for the analysis of pig sera. All farms except one (97.43%) and 714 sera samples (50.21%) resulted positive for anti-HEV IgG antibodies. This study confirms that HEV is widespread in pigs in Italy and might be endemic on most farms.

• Hepatitis E virus
• pig
• antibodies
• prevalence
• ELISA

Acknowledgements

For technical support we must thank Mrs Daniela Bresciani and Dr Paolo Bonilauri for their precious collaboration. We also thank Michael John of the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan for the English language editing of this manuscript.