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DEVELOPMENT OF A MOLECULAR METHOD TO IDENTIFY THE EMERGING PATHOGEN HEPATITIS E IN WATER SAMPLES
Citation:
Grimm, A C. DEVELOPMENT OF A MOLECULAR METHOD TO IDENTIFY THE EMERGING PATHOGEN HEPATITIS E IN WATER SAMPLES. Presented at The Science and Mission Club, Cincinnati, OH, February 9, 2000.
Impact/Purpose:
Develop sensitive techniques to detect and identify emerging human waterborne pathogenic viruses and viruses on the CCL.
Determine effectiveness of viral indicators to measure microbial quality in water matrices.
Support activities: (a) culture and distribution of mammalian cells for Agency and scientific community research needs, (b) provide operator expertise for research requiring confocal and electron microscopy, (c) glassware cleaning, sterilization and biological waste disposal for the Cincinnati EPA facility, (d) operation of infectious pathogenic suite, (e) maintenance of walk-in constant temperature rooms and (f) provide Giardia cysts.
Description:
Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an emerging pathogen that causes significant illness in the developing world. Like the hepatitis A virus, it is transmitted via the fecal-oral route and can cause short-term, acute hepatitis. In addition, hepatitis E has been found to cause a significant rate of mortality in pregnant women. Thus far, a hepatitis E outbreak has not been reported in the U. S. although a swine variant of the virus is common in Midwestern hogs. Since it will be important to identify the presence of this virus in the water supply, we have developed and are testing a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method that should be able to identify all of the known HEV strains.