Seroepidemiological survey on the infection of hepatitis E virus in deer and cattle in partial regions of China

Objective To determine the prevalence of hepatitis E virus (HEV) in deer and cattle in partial regions of China.Methods 780 deer sera from 13 herds bred under intensive model and 18 deer sera from 2 herds bred under dispersing model were collected from several provinces of China,respectively.And 80 cattle sera were collected from Changchun region.All these sera were tested for anti-HEV antibody using the sandwich enzyme immunoassay(XMU assay).Discrepancy of the positive rates of anti-HEV antibody between different herds was analyzed by χ~(2) test.Results The mean positive rates of anti-HEV antibody for deer and cattle were 43.61% and 20.00%,respectively.Positive deer were detected from five of the thirteen intensive breeding herds,with positive rates of 48.02%,47.25%,60.69%,41.94% and 40.91%,respectively.The positive rates of the sera collected from two deer herds bred under the dispersing model were 40.00% and 46.15%,respectively.Conclusion The infection of HEV is widespread in deer and cattle herds,especially in the herds bred under the dispersing model.