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Aussie boy contracts rare Hepatitis E from donated blood

Xinhua, April 18, 2017 Adjust font size:

An Australian boy has become the nation's first person to contract Hepatitis E from donated blood.

The boy, aged six years old, was infected by the rare type of Hepatitis, also known as HEV, after a liver transplant operation in 2014, experts wrote in the Medical Journal of Australia on Tuesday.

HEV has been known to cause cirrhosis or permanent liver damage in transplant patients.

The typical recovery time is six weeks and most people won't have enduring symptoms, but the disease can be severe for pregnant women and people with pre-existing liver conditions.

Donated plasma used during the liver transplant infected the boy in 2014 but the disease was not diagnosed until 2015.

Archived samples of all 18 blood donations the boy received were tested by the Australian Red Cross Blood Service and discovered one of them was positive.

It was established that the donor had eaten pork in the south of France, which is known to have a high prevalence of HEV, before giving his blood.

Experts from the Australian Red cross Blood Service, led by Veronica Hoad, the PathWest Laboratory, Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory and Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in Perth detailed the case in the Medical Journal of Australia.

"While the risk in Australia is low compared with other countries, we report the first confirmed Australian case of transmission by transfusion," the authors wrote.

"Chronic infection can occur in immunocompromised individuals and may lead to cirrhosis; however, early recognition and treatment generally results in viral clearance."

There were 41 cases of HEV in each 2015 and 2016 with 14 so far in 2017, a vast majority of which involved an Australian catching the disease overseas.

A spokesperson for the Blood Service said the blood supply in Australia remained one of the safest in the world with no transmissions of HEV since the incident.

"This is due to the low prevalence of hepatitis E in the Australian population combined with our strict donor eligibility guidelines," the spokesperson told Fairfax Media on Tuesday.

"In the wake of this incident, the Blood Service reviewed all available evidence and concluded that the ongoing risk to the blood supply remains very low, and does not warrant the introduction of any further testing of donated blood." Endit