SEROEPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY OF HEPATITIS-E VIRUS IN DIFFERENT POPULATION GROUPS

In order to determine the seroprevalence of hepatitis E virus, 1,993 s era (453 from healthy pregnant women, 491 from Moroccan subjects, 492 from blood donors, 321 from children, and 236 from intravenous drug us ers) were studied. IgG was measured by enzyme immunoassay (EIA), and p ositive results were confirmed by Western blot. The EIA detected antib odies in 3.96 % of the subjects (5.6 % of the Moroccans and drug users and 1.8 % of the children). Fifty-four percent of these results were confirmed by Western blot, 11.4 % were found to be negative, and 34.2 % indeterminate. The overall prevalence after confirmation by Western blot decreased to 2.15 %. When studying the Western blot pattern of th e positive samples, 95 % showed antibodies to SG-3, 65 % to 8-5, and o nly 9.3 % to CKS fusion protein. In the indeterminate Western blots, t he results for these proteins were 96.3 %, 62.9 %, and 37 %, respectiv ely. When the epidemiological data were analysed, no statistically sig nificant differences between women and men or between different age gr oups were found.