Approaches to Meat Safety

Meat Juice as an Alternative Sample to Hepatitis E Virus ELISA: A Pilot Study in Wild Boar

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Abstract

Currently, the Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection in the European wild boar population is considered an emerging Public Health issue. Constraints in obtaining a good blood sample from hunted animals, difficulty in the HEV sero-surveillance of this wild population because of bad quality serum samples to perform serologic tests. With this purpose, this study aimed to determine whether meat juice as an alternative sample for HEV Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) test is appropriate to predict the occurrence of HEV in the wild boar populations. During the 2021/2022 hunting season, 123 paired samples were obtained (blood vs meat juice) from hunted wild boars in Portugal. In the laboratory, a commercial ELISA kit was performed. To minimise the error and influence of hemolysis on serum testing, only 60 paired samples were considered, and the overall agreement proportion is 58%. With these results, this study has some limitations, and the potential use of meat juice for serologic tests performance should be discussed.

How to Cite:

Abrantes, A., Santos-Silva, S., Mesquita, J. R. & Vieira-Pinto, M., (2023) “Meat Juice as an Alternative Sample to Hepatitis E Virus ELISA: A Pilot Study in Wild Boar”, SafePork 14(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/safepork.16342