Complete or near-complete nucleotide sequences of hepatitis E virus genome recovered from a wild boar, a deer, and four patients who ate the deer

Zoonosis has been implicated in hepatitis E virus (HEV) transmission. We examined wild boar living in a forest of Hyogo prefecture, Japan, and found HEV RNA in three of seven boars. A full-genome HEV isolate from one of them was revealed to be 99.7% identical to a previous isolate from a wild deer hunted in the same forest and to those from four patients who contracted hepatitis E after eating raw meat of the deer. These findings suggest an interspecies HEV transmission between boar and deer in their wild life, and that both animals might serve as an infection source for human beings as suggested previously. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.