L'origine zoonotique de l'hépatite E dans les pays industrialisés

In industrialized countries, entero-transmissible hepatitis are still considered too often as imported diseases from endemic areas. Advances in the epidemiology of viral hepatitis E revealed that it is mostly indigenous with a zoonotic origin. Indeed, the recent identification of animal reservoirs harboring HEV strains transmissible to humans emphasizes the originality of this hepatitis compared to the other hepatitis viruses almost exclusively human. Thus, direct contact with infected animals and consumption of infected food represent significant risk factors of HEV exposure. Furthermore, different severe clinical forms of viral hepatitis E have been better characterized, particularly chronic or neurological forms that were totally ignored previously. Thus, viral hepatitis E is a foodborne zoonotic disease that can lead to serious conditions and is a major public health problem. Efforts to control this disease must be pursued at both human and animal health levels.