For health professionals: Hepatitis E

Get detailed information on hepatitis E for health professionals.

What health professionals need to know about hepatitis E

Hepatitis E virus is classified as a virus belonging to the genus Orthohepevirus in the family Hepeviridae.

Monitor for symptoms of disease. Confirm using serological or nucleic acid tests, and by exclusion of hepatitis A, B and C viruses.

Serological tests involve enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) for the detection of antibodies to hepatitis E virus (IgM, IgA, and IgG).

Nucleic acid tests involve reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays for the detection of hepatitis E virus RNA in samples of:

No specific treatment is currently available. Those infected should recover on their own with bed rest.