Hepatitis E Virus Occurrence in Pigs Slaughtered in Italy

In Europe, foodborne transmission has been clearly associated to sporadic cases and small clusters of hepatitis E in humans linked to the consumption of contaminated pig liver sausages, raw venison, or undercooked wild boar meat. In Europe, zoonotic HEV-genotype 3 strains are widespread in pig farms...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Animals (Basel) 2021-01, Vol.11 (2), p.277
Main Authors: Chelli, Eleonora, Suffredini, Elisabetta, De Santis, Paola, De Medici, Dario, Di Bella, Santina, D'Amato, Stefania, Gucciardi, Francesca, Guercio, Annalisa, Ostanello, Fabio, Perrone, Vitantonio, Purpari, Giuseppa, Scavia, Gaia Sofia, Schembri, Pietro, Varcasia, Bianca Maria, Di Bartolo, Ilaria
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
abattoir
Abattoirs
Acids
Animals
Biological properties
Biological samples
Blood & organ donations
Contamination
Diaphragm
Epidemiology
Farms
Feces
Food
Food contamination
genotype 3
Genotypes
Hepatitis
hepatitis E virus
Hogs
Infections
Liver
Meat
Medical research
Muscles
Organs
Phylogeny
pigs
Polymerase chain reaction
Process controls
RNA viruses
Sausages
Serology
slaughterhouse
Sus scrofa
Swine
Venison
Viruses
Zoonoses
zoonosis
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Summary:In Europe, foodborne transmission has been clearly associated to sporadic cases and small clusters of hepatitis E in humans linked to the consumption of contaminated pig liver sausages, raw venison, or undercooked wild boar meat. In Europe, zoonotic HEV-genotype 3 strains are widespread in pig farms but little information is available on the prevalence of HEV positive pigs at slaughterhouse. In the present study, the prevalence of HEV-RNA positive pigs was assessed on 585 animals from 4 abattoirs located across Italy. Twenty-one pigs (3.6%) tested positive for HEV in either feces or liver by real-time RT-PCR. In these 21 pigs, eight diaphragm muscles resulted positive for HEV-RNA. Among animals collected in one abattoir, 4 out of 91 plasma tested positive for HEV-RNA. ELISA tests for the detection of total antibodies against HEV showed a high seroprevalence (76.8%), confirming the frequent exposure of pigs to the virus. The phylogenetic analyses conducted on sequences of both and fragments, shows the circulation of HEV-3c and of a novel unclassified subtype. This study provides information on HEV occurrence in pigs at the slaughterhouse, confirming that muscles are rarely contaminated by HEV-RNA compared to liver, which is the most frequently positive for HEV.
ISSN:2076-2615
2076-2615
DOI:10.3390/ani11020277