Incidence and duration of hepatitis E virus infection in Dutch blood donors

BACKGROUND The incidence of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection in the Netherlands is high. Blood donors are not routinely screened for HEV infection, but since January 2013, donations used for the production of solvent/detergent (S/D)‐treated plasma have been screened for HEV RNA. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS Donations were screened for HEV RNA in pools of 96 and 192 donations. In addition, all donations made between 60 days before and after each HEV RNA‐positive donation were tested individually for HEV RNA and anti‐HEV immunoglobulin G. RESULTS The screening of 59,474 donations between January 2013 and December 2014 resulted in identification of 45 HEV RNA‐positive donations (0.076%) from 41 donors. HEV RNA loads ranged from 80 to 2.3 × 10 6 IU/mL. The number of positive donations increased significantly over time (p = 0.03). Thirty‐three of 90 donations made up to 60 days before or after HEV RNA‐positive donations were positive when tested individually, while they had not been detected in the pool screening. The mean duration of HEV viremia in the healthy blood donor is estimated to be 68 days. CONCLUSION The incidence of HEV infection in the Netherlands is high and increased during the study period. In 2013 and 2014, HEV RNA was detected in 1 per 762 donations intended for production of S/D plasma.