Many slaughter pigs and a growing number of blood donors are infected with hepatitis E, according to figures from blood bank Sanquin and Utrecht University. The virus is circulating in 90 percent of pig houses. Many infected animals are also delivered for slaughter.
Marina Meester, PhD student in epidemiology at Utrecht University, discovered that 40 percent of the farms have infected pigs when they are delivered for slaughter. The raw pork that is produced with this has been leading to a high number of hepatitis E cases in the Netherlands for years.
Since the summer of 2020, the percentage of blood infected with hepatitis E has been increasing, blood bank Sanquin notes. “It is not a problem for people with a healthy immune system, but it can have far-reaching consequences for people whose immune system is disrupted,” says Hans Zaaijer, principal researcher at Sanquin in the NTR science program tonight. Atlas† “It illustrates how an animal virus from the pigsty has ended up on our plates for years.”
liver sausages
Earlier research by Sanquin and the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) showed that the hepatitis E virus was found in 78 percent of the liver sausages and 80 percent of the liver pâté.
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Treatment is possible, but there are still a number of people who die from it every year
Hepatitis E is a disease of the liver. The virus is found in both pigs and humans. There are three different types. People do not get sick from type 3, which lives in pigs. But the variants that people contract on vacation (types 1 and 2) can lead to fever, abdominal pain and jaundice. People with a weakened immune system also run the risk of chronic liver inflammation.
“Treatment is possible, but a number of people die from it every year,” says virologist Wim van der Poel of Wageningen University. For several years now, vulnerable patients have been advised not to eat raw pork.
Van der Poel mainly fears mutation of the virus. Like corona, Hepatitis E is an RNA virus. That means that mutations take place and that virus variants could arise that are more pathogenic.”
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