Wild game source of hepatitis E cases Japan

Main Category: Liver Disease / Hepatitis
Article Date: 13 May 2004 - 0:00 PDT


A group of 11 people from Nagasaki Prefecture contracted hepatitis E in March last year after eating partly-cooked wild boar that carried the virus, according to a Nagasaki Medical Center report that was obtained by The Yomiuri Shimbun.

It was the first time such a large scale group infection with hepatitis E was confirmed in the country.

With the barbecue season approaching, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry is warning people not to eat the raw or partly-cooked meat of wild animals.

Two men, both aged 69, reportedly developed acute hepatitis about 40 days after eating wild boar meat and received medical treatment at a nearby hospital.

Having been informed of the case by the hospital last summer, the Nagasaki Medical Center, a part of the National Hospital Organization, studied the men's blood serum from which hepatitis E virus was detected.

The men are believed to have contracted the virus from the same source of infection as more than 99 percent of the genes matched.

A follow-up study of ten people who ate the meat with the two found three of them had sought medical treatment after showing hepatitis symptoms. Hepatitis E antibodies were detected in their blood, confirming infection.

The antibodies also were found in six out of the remaining seven, although they produced no symptoms.

The medical center determined they were infected with the virus as they ate wild boar that they caught in nearby mountains.

In April last year, a man from Tottori Prefecture died of hepatitis E after eating the raw liver of wild boar that carried the virus. Another man in the same prefecture who ate the meat also contracted the disease.

Four people in Hyogo Prefecture who ate raw deer meat also contracted the disease in February last year.

But it was the first time more than 10 people contracted the disease at the same time.

From: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20040513wo31.htm

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