Determination Of Hepatitis A Virus In Food By Electrochemical Immunosensor

Hepatitis A is an acute infectious disease of the liver due to a picornavirus, Hepatitis A virus (HAV). Globally, symptomatic HAV infections are believed to occur in around 1,4 million people a year while in 2010 in Italy we had 1,1 case out of 100.000 [1]. The disease is usually spread by eating or drinking food or water contaminated, shellfish which have not been sufficiently cooked is a relatively common source [2]. Current legislation for water, shellfish (EC 2073/2005 EC B53/2004) and plant (EC 2073/2005) does not provide for any limitation due to the presence of HAV and other enteric viruses in the irrigation and housing water. In addition, there will be no official method for the detection of these viruses. Currently, the environmental presence of HAV virus is only determined after the outbreak. The diagnosis is based on the patient's symptoms and more specifically through the search for anti-HAV IgG antibodies in blood. In this work we show the development of a disposable electrochemical immunosensor for the detection of HAV antigens in food matrices and/or in the environment. This rapid and lowcost analysis method can involve the use of a portable instrument to perform measurements directly in the field. This electrochemical immunosensor is based on competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) format using screen printed electrodes. Results showed a working range between 1·10-6 – 1·10-2 IU/mL. The proposed system was applied to food and drinking water. The results obtained on real samples by the proposed immunosensor were compared with those of the qRT-PCR analysis, a routine technique applied by the controllers in evaluating the contamination levels in different samples. Bibliografia [1] S.C. Matheny, J.E. Kingery. Hepatitis A. Am Fam Physician. 2012, 11, 1027-34. [2] O. Zuccaro, M.E. Tosti, A. Mele, E. Spada, SEIEVA Cooperative Group. Rapporto Istisan, Epidemiology of acute viral hepatitis in Italy: results of surveillance through SEIEVA (Sistema Epidemiologico Integrato dell’ Epatite Virale Acuta). 2012. 1-35.