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©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 28, 2016; 22(24): 5568-5577
Published online Jun 28, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i24.5568
Published online Jun 28, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i24.5568
Hepatitis E in Israel: A nation-wide retrospective study
Ortal Erez-Granat, Pediatrics Department, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Ramat Gan 5262110, Israel
Tamar Lachish, The Infectious Diseases Unit, Shaare-Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem 9103102, Israel
Nili Daudi, The Liver Unit, the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem 91120, Israel
Daniel Shouval, The Liver Unit, the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem 91120, Israel
Eli Schwartz, The Center for Geographic Medicine and Department of Medicine C, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Ramat Gan 5262110, Israel
Author contributions: Erez-Granat O, Schwartz E, Shouval D and Lachish T designed the research; Erez-Granat O performed the research and collected the data by telephone interviews and review of medical records; Daudi N was responsible for the laboratory work and analysis; all authors were responsible for interpretation of the data; Erez-Granat O wrote the paper; Schwartz E, Shouval D and Lachish T revised the paper; all authors were responsible for the final approval of the version to be published.
Supported by Puerto Rico and Gendal foundations (in part); and the Hadassah Liver Unit through an annual payment forwarded by the Hadassah Medical Organization, New-York, United States (to Portoricco-Gendal Endowment).
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the Sheba-Medical Centers’ institutional review board.
Informed consent statement: All study participants received mail with the study protocol and were asked for consent to participate in this study. All study participants provided informed consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Eli Schwartz, MD, DTMH, Professor, The Center for Geographic Medicine and Department of Medicine C, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer 52621, Israel. elischwa@post.tau.ac.il
Telephone: +972-3-5308456 Fax: +972-3-5308456
Received: February 4, 2016
Peer-review started: February 9, 2016
First decision: April 14, 2016
Revised: May 11, 2016
Accepted: May 21, 2016
Article in press: May 23, 2016
Published online: June 28, 2016
Peer-review started: February 9, 2016
First decision: April 14, 2016
Revised: May 11, 2016
Accepted: May 21, 2016
Article in press: May 23, 2016
Published online: June 28, 2016
Core Tip
Core tip: This is the first epidemiologic report on hepatitis E virus (HEV) in Israel. This report demonstrates the significant presence of autochthonous acute HEV in Israel, serving as an example of occurrence in an industrialized country. Suspected risk factors in Israel include consumption of water and food in areas with poor sanitation, exposure to animals and eating a non-Kosher meat. The high risk group for fulminant hepatitis was pregnant women in their final trimester. Additionally, imported HEV, originating mainly from the Indian subcontinent, is also seen in Israel. Awareness of this disease is important both among physicians in Israel as well as those in other industrialized countries.