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Shunji Mishiro, Kazuaki Takahashi, Jong-Hon Kang, Sachiyo Ohnishi, Kunihiko Hino, Reply, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Volume 186, Issue 10, 15 November 2002, Pages 1536–1537, https://doi.org/10.1086/344350
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To the Editor—In a previous study [1], we suggested that the presence of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection in Japan is no longer solely due to imported cases from countries in which HEV is endemic; however, we left unanswered the question of how long ago the ancestors of the presently domestic HEV strains made inroads into Japan. In their letter, Aikawa et al. [2] provide an answer, although not the final one, from at least 20 years ago. Aikawa and colleagues performed nucleotide sequencing on an HEV isolate (HE-JO-1982) from the stored serum sample of a Japanese patient who had contracted non-A, non-B hepatitis in 1982. Among all known sequences, HE-JO-1982 was most homologous to the JRA1 isolate [3], which we had reported to be a presumably Japan-indigenous strain. Thus, HEV may have been circulating domestically in Japan for a substantial amount of time. Further “archeological” research is needed for us to fully elucidate the history of HEV in Japan
