Hepatitis A

Hepatitis A is a disease of worldwide distribution which occurs in endemic and epidemic form and is transmitted primarily by person-to-person contact through the fecal-oral route. Common source epidemics due to contamination of food are relatively common, and water-borne epidemics have been described less frequently. The presumed etiologic agent of hepatitis A has now been visualized by immune electron microscopic (IEM) techniques in early acute-illness-phase stools of humans with hepatitis A as well as in chimpanzees experimentally infected with material known to contain hepatitis A virus. In addition, several new serologic tests for the detection of antibody against hepatitis A virus have been described. These include complement fixation and immune adherence techniques. Current data suggest that hepatitis A is caused by a single viral agent lacking the morphologic heterogeneity of hepatitis B viral components and that there may be relative antigenic homogeneity between strains of virus recovered from various parts of the world. Serologic studies to date also indicate that hepatitis A virus is not a major contributing cause in post-transfusion hepatitis.