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Abstract

Background

Awareness of transfusion-transmitted hepatitis E raised in recent years led to the mandatory testing of blood donations in some European countries for hepatitis E virus (HEV) RNA. However, little is known about the epidemiology of HEV infections.

Aim

To and describe and analyse the epidemiology of HEV infections in blood donors in Germany.

Methods

Data from routine testing of therapeutic blood products donated between January 2015 and December 2022 at the Uni.Blutspendedienst OWL were analysed at the Institute of Laboratory and Transfusion Medicine, Heart and Diabetes Centre North Rhine-Westphalia. A total of 731,630 allogenic blood donations from 119,610 individual blood donors were tested for HEV RNA in minipools of 96 samples. The HEV RNA-positive donations were analysed for the presence of anti-HEV IgM and IgG. The HEV strains were genotyped and various clinical liver-specific parameters were determined.

Results

A total of 497 HEV-positive blood donations were identified, resulting in a yearly incidence of 1:1,474, from which 78.4% of the donations were RNA-only positive. Increased alanine aminotransferase activity was determined in 26.6% of HEV RNA-positive donors and was associated with the detection of IgG antibodies (1.2% anti-HEV IgM-positive, 11.9% anti-HEV IgM- and IgG-positive and 8.5% anti-HEV IgG-positive). An average incidence of 0.084–0.083% HEV RNA-positive donations in June and July in all years was observed, and a higher proportion of HEV RNA-positive men compared with women. All isolated HEV sequences corresponded to genotype 3.

Conclusion

Our results underline the necessity of HEV RNA screening in blood donations.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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2024-06-13
2024-06-30
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.24.2300665
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Hepatitis E virus infections in German blood donors: results of 8 years of screening, 2015 to 2022
<p class="citation"> <span>Citation style for this article:</span> <span class="meta-value authors"> <a href="/search?value1=Ricarda+Pl%C3%BCmers&option1=author&noRedirect=true" class="nonDisambigAuthorLink">Plümers Ricarda</a>, <a href="/search?value1=Jens+Dreier&option1=author&noRedirect=true" class="nonDisambigAuthorLink">Dreier Jens</a>, <a href="/search?value1=Cornelius+Knabbe&option1=author&noRedirect=true" class="nonDisambigAuthorLink">Knabbe Cornelius</a>, <a href="/search?value1=Andr%C3%A9+G%C3%B6mer&option1=author&noRedirect=true" class="nonDisambigAuthorLink">Gömer André</a>, <a href="/search?value1=Eike+Steinmann&option1=author&noRedirect=true" class="nonDisambigAuthorLink">Steinmann Eike</a>, <a href="/search?value1=Daniel+Todt&option1=author&noRedirect=true" class="nonDisambigAuthorLink">Todt Daniel</a>, <a href="/search?value1=Tanja+Vollmer&option1=author&noRedirect=true" class="nonDisambigAuthorLink">Vollmer Tanja</a></span>. Hepatitis E virus infections in German blood donors: results of 8 years of screening, 2015 to 2022. <a href="/content/ecdc">Euro Surveill.</a> 2024;29(24):pii=2300665. <a href="https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.24.2300665" title="doi link" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2024.29.24.2300665</a> <span class="ES_Article_citation"> <span class="generated">Received</span>: 23 Nov 2023;&nbsp;&nbsp; <span class="generated">Accepted</span>: 29 Mar 2024 </span> </p>
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