23829163

PMC4542147

Background

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection has become relevant to blood transfusion practice because isolated cases of blood transmission have been reported and because HEV has been found to cause chronic infection and severe liver disease in immuno-compromised patients.

Study design and Methods

We tested for IgG and IgM antibodies to the hepatitis E virus (HEV) and for HEV RNA in 1939 unselected volunteer US blood donors. Subsequently, we tested the same parameters in pre- and serial post-transfusion samples from 362 prospectively followed blood recipients to assess transfusion risk.

Results

IgG anti-HEV seroprevalence in the total 1939 donations was 18.8%: 916 of these donations were made in 2006 at which time the seroprevalence was 21.8% and the remaining 1023 donations were in 2012 when the seroprevalence had decreased to 16.0% (p<0.01). A significant (P<0.001) stepwise increase in anti-HEV seroprevalence was seen with increasing age. Eight of 1939 donations (0.4%) tested anti-HEV IgM positive; no donation was HEV RNA positive. Two recipients had an apparent anti-HEV seroconversion, but temporal relationships and linked donor testing showed that these were not transfusion transmitted HEV infections.

Conclusion

No transfusion-transmitted HEV infections were observed in 362 prospectively followed blood recipients despite an anti-HEV seroprevalence among donations exceeding 16%.

CDC Public Access

01-CC-0231/CC/ODCDC CDC HHS/United States
R01 HL67229/HL/NHLBI NIH HHS/United States
Z01 CL002110-08/Intramural NIH HHS/United States