Hepatitis E Virus

Hepatitis E, previously known as “enterically transmitted non-A, non-B, non-C
(non-A-C) hepatitis”, is an infectious viral disease with clinical and morphological
features of acute hepatitis. The course of disease is mild in most affected people,
except pregnant women, for whom the mortality rate can rise to 20 % (Aggarwal
and Jameel 2011). The etiological agent, first identified in the early 1980s, is the
hepatitis E virus (HEV) (Emerson and Purcell 2003). The disease is an important
public health concern in developing countries (Southeastern and Central Asia, the
Middle East, northern and western areas of Africa and America) where it is frequently epidemic, and is mainly transmitted by the fecal-oral route usually through
the consumption of contaminated water or food (Emerson and Purcell 2003;
Wibawa et al. 2004; Aggarwal 2011).