First description of hepatitis E virus in Australian rabbits
2021
Jenckel, M | Hall, RN | Strive, T
We report the first detection of hepatitis E virus in rabbits in Australia. While conducting metatranscriptomic sequencing of liver samples collected from domestic rabbits that had died, we detected hepatitis E virus in three samples. Two viral genome sequences were obtained, which shared 96% nucleotide identity and clustered with hepatitis E strains isolated from rabbits and humans in Europe. This raises a potential public health risk in Australia, as the abundance of wild rabbits and the increasing popularity of domestic rabbits as pets represent a substantial human/rabbit interface to allow for potential zoonotic infections to occur.
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