Abstract:Objective To investigate the epidemiological characteristics of the sporadic Hepatitis E infection cases in Nanyang area. Methods In the investigation process of the target population, ELISA was used to detect the antibodies in the collected serum samples. The 150bp fragments of the ORF2 were amplified from the positive samples by nested RT-PCR and the target fragments were sequenced and analyzed. Results 295 of 1100 serum samples were HEV antibody positive, and the positive rate was 26.8%. Sporadic hepatitis E cases of 80.3% occurred with age over 35, and the male to female ratio was 1.86 : 1. A total of 128 serum samples were HEV RNA positive, and the viral sequences belonged to the genotype 4 with the maximum homology to Xi'an isolate. Conclusions Hepatitis E sporadic in Nanyang area and genotype 4 is the predominant strain in the city. The strains isolated in Nanyang have the closest relationship with Xi'an isolate, and this maybe infer that these two strains probably originate from the same HEV strain.