Journal
JOURNAL OF CLINICAL VIROLOGY
Volume 50, Issue 2, Pages 175-176Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcv.2010.10.018
Keywords
Hepatitis; Gastroenteritis; HEV; Autochthonous; Child
Categories
Funding
- EU [037276]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is well-known to cause endemic outbreaks of hepatitis in tropical countries, mostly caused by HEV genotypes 1 or 2 and transmitted from humans to humans via the fecal-oral route. In contrast, HEV genotypes 3 or 4 are commonly encountered as sporadic cases in a non-endemic setting; these autochthonous cases are transmitted from animals to humans and commonly affect elderly male subjects. We report a five-month-old caucasian girl presenting with diarrhea, emesis, and elevated ALT. Surprisingly, acute infection with Hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype 3 was laboratory-confirmed by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and sequencing. Thirteen months later, RT-PCR for HEV from stool tested negative whereas anti-HEV IgG in serum tested positive. Neither HEV RNA nor anti-HEV antibodies could be detected in stool or serum of the parents. To our knowledge, this is the first pediatric case of a HEV infection in Germany. Thus, HEV should be included into the differential diagnosis of pediatric infectious liver and bowel disease. (C) 2010 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available