Seroepidemiology of Hepatitis E Virus infection in Blood Donors of Central Province of Iran

Background:Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a major public health concern in developing countries. HEVtransmission occurs primarily by the fecal-oral route. It has also been reported that blooddonors are potentially able to cause transfusion-associated hepatitis E in endemic areas. Thisstudy aimed to determine the seroprevalence of HEV infection among volunteer blood donorsin Central province of Iran, to evaluate the possible blood-born transmission of HEV in Iranas an endemic areaPatients & Methods:A total of 530 blood donor samples collected from Blood Transfusion Organization, Centralprovince of Iran. All samples were tested for the presence of IgG Hepatitis E antibody (anti-HEV) using ELISA testResults:From 530 cases, 91.9% were male and 8.1% were female. Overall, anti-HEV was found in 76of 530 samples (14.3%). There was no significant difference in HEV seropositivity betweenthe subjects regarding gender and area of residence. Anti-HEV was distributed among all agegroups. Although people aged 31-50 years had the highest prevalence, but there was nostatistical difference between the age groupsConclusion:This study shows a relatively high prevalence of anti-HEV in the blood donors of Centralprovince of Iran. More investigations are needed to assess the potential benefit of addingHEV screening of blood products to the current blood donor selection criteria