• A review on hepatitis A
  • Mir-Hassan Moosavy,1,* Fatemeh sheykhkanlu Milan,2 Seyed Amin Khatibi,3
    1. Department of Food Hygiene and Aquatic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
    2. Department of Food Hygiene and Aquatic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
    3. Department of Food Hygiene and Aquatic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.


  • Introduction: Hepatitis is one of the main threats to public health that is related to the considerable numbers of death. At least five types of hepatitis virus have been identified, including hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E. Among these types, the transmission of hepatitis A (HAV) and E occurs through the fecal-oral route, either by direct contact with an infected person or the ingestion of contaminated food or water. The most common causes of viral hepatitis are five unrelated hepatotropic viruses. HAV is an infectious disease of liver caused by HAV, which is a highly contagious disease. It has a widespread outbreak in developing countries. Based on several scientific reports, more than 90% to 100% of children under six years old are infected with this type of virus in their childhood. Generally, this disease has no clinical symptoms in children. There is a potential danger in the transmission of HAV via imported food and food supplements from the countries which HAV is endemic and hygiene standards are low level.
  • Methods: For the present review, the literature in biomedical databases like PUBMED, Elsevier and Google Scholar were searched using the following keywords: "Hepatitis A", “infectious disease", "Epidemiology", and "Treatment". The search was limited to articles published in and after 2000.
  • Results: HAV prevalence was in correlation with food borne disease. So, the contamination of food with this virus from the beginning to the ending of the production line is resulted to HAV prevalence. Despite the fact that this virus does not cause chronic hepatic disease, it could be responsible for acute hepatitis and rarely death. Because the clinical symptoms will start to appear several weeks after the start of infection, it is not a very appropriate method to look for the contaminated foods with HAV. Furthermore, during the recent years, due to the progresses in hygiene and quality control of foods, the incidence of HAV is decreasing in many countries.
  • Conclusion: Although HAV was one of the main health-threatening diseases in the past, the prevalence and incidence of HAV have been decreased nowadays due to the improvements in personal and public health, upgraded standards of food processing and vaccination. The prevalence of this disease can be decreased by the vaccination of vulnerable people particularly children and elderly individuals. In order to achieve an effective scheme for vaccination against HAV, enough knowledge and advanced diagnostic tools are necessary.
  • Keywords: Infectious hepatitis, Virus, Hepatitis A