Hepatitis E in Pakistan

In Pakistan, sporadic cases of hepatitis E occur throughout the year. However, small outbreaks and epidemics of hepatitis E have been reported from the cities of Peshawar, Mardan, Abbottabad, Rawalpindi-Islamabad, Sargodha, Multan, Hyderabad, Quetta and Karachi. A large epidemic of hepatitis E occurred in one of the army garrisons at Lahore in early 1995, when more than 600 cases were treated as inpatients. Wherever epidemiological investigations have been carried out, the cause of the outbreak has always been found to be contamination of water supplies with sewage. This paper considers the epidemiology, diagnosis, clinical features, treatment, prevention and control of hepatitis E in Pakistan