Community-wide outbreak of hepatitis A in Latvia in 2008 – an update

J Perevoščikovs; I Lucenko; S Magone; A Brila; J Curikova; H Vennema

doi:10.2807/ese.14.03.19092-en

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Community-wide outbreak of hepatitis A in Latvia in 2008 – an update
J Perevoščikovs¹ , I Lucenko¹ , S Magone¹ , A Brila¹ , J Curikova¹ , H Vennema²
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Affiliations: ¹ State Agency “Public Health Agency” (Sabiedrības veselības aģentūra), Riga, Latvia ² National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu, RIVM), Bilthoven, the Netherlands

Correspondence:
J Perevoščikovs
jurijs.perevoscikovs sva.gov.lv
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Citation style for this article: Perevoščikovs J, Lucenko I, Magone S, Brila A, Curikova J, Vennema H. Community-wide outbreak of hepatitis A in Latvia in 2008 – an update. Euro Surveill. 2009;14(3):pii=19092. https://doi.org/10.2807/ese.14.03.19092-en Received: 15 Jan 2009

Abstract

An outbreak of hepatitis A has been ongoing in Latvia with 2,817 confirmed cases reported between 20 November 2007 and 31 December 2008. Initially the spread of infection was due to transmission among drug users and other high-risk groups, as well as several outbreaks in Riga (affecting a school and a restaurant), but in the second half of the year led to a community-wide increase in the number of cases. Molecular analysis of 100 strains showed that 95 belonged to genotype IA, of which 89 were identical and six were single nucleotide variants of the same sequence.