Hepatitis link to pigs may hit transplant hopes

[Guest guest]

Hepatitis link to pigs may hit transplant hopes

Meikle, health correspondent

Saturday February 21, 2004

The Guardian

Britons might be catching hepatitis from pigs, a hypothesis that could

undermine hopes of eventually using pigs' organs to cut waiting lists for

human transplants, it emerged yesterday.

Vets investigating the prevalence of the hepatitis E virus in British herds

found its signature looked like a strain identified in a human.

The disease is rare in Britain, most of the 30 to 40 cases a year being

people who have traveled to developing countries where hygiene is poorer. It

is often endemic in pig herds in such countries.

It is usually mild compared with hepatitis B and C, which can lead to

chronic disease, but it can cause severe liver failure in pregnant women.

Researchers from the government's Veterinary Laboratories Agency, writing in

the Veterinary Record, have warned that the disease, which seems to have

been well established in pigs for a decade, might on rare occasions leap

from animals to humans. Pigs appear to carry the virus without symptoms and

many humans may be carriers too, so hepatitis E might be more widespread

than clinical cases suggest.

Xenotransplantation, using animal organs in humans, is still some years away

but experiments between animal species have been attempted for some time.

Pig cells may help cure diabetes, if experiments using monkeys are any

guide, while scientists have tried to transplant piglets' hearts to baboons.

But there have long been fears that diseases harmless to pigs might turn

into killer viruses when transferred to humans, undermining hopes that

humans could soon have life-saving heart, liver or kidney transplants from

specially bred GM pigs. No near-human trials are even near development in

Britain.

The virus found in young pigs from farms in Bedfordshire and Suffolk was

very like that found in a patient from Cornwall who had not traveled outside

Britain for more than four years, according to yesterday's report. " Further

work is needed to establish more precisely the extent and impact, if any, of

infection in pigs and people in the UK and other countries, " it said.

But " limited data " so far suggested transmission between species could not

be ruled out. The presence of such potential animal-to-human viruses " also

has implications in the field of xenotransplantation. "

http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,7890,1154138,00.html

[Guest guest]

Hepatitis link to pigs may hit transplant hopes

Meikle, health correspondent

Saturday February 21, 2004

The Guardian

Britons might be catching hepatitis from pigs, a hypothesis that could

undermine hopes of eventually using pigs' organs to cut waiting lists for

human transplants, it emerged yesterday.

Vets investigating the prevalence of the hepatitis E virus in British herds

found its signature looked like a strain identified in a human.

The disease is rare in Britain, most of the 30 to 40 cases a year being

people who have traveled to developing countries where hygiene is poorer. It

is often endemic in pig herds in such countries.

It is usually mild compared with hepatitis B and C, which can lead to

chronic disease, but it can cause severe liver failure in pregnant women.

Researchers from the government's Veterinary Laboratories Agency, writing in

the Veterinary Record, have warned that the disease, which seems to have

been well established in pigs for a decade, might on rare occasions leap

from animals to humans. Pigs appear to carry the virus without symptoms and

many humans may be carriers too, so hepatitis E might be more widespread

than clinical cases suggest.

Xenotransplantation, using animal organs in humans, is still some years away

but experiments between animal species have been attempted for some time.

Pig cells may help cure diabetes, if experiments using monkeys are any

guide, while scientists have tried to transplant piglets' hearts to baboons.

But there have long been fears that diseases harmless to pigs might turn

into killer viruses when transferred to humans, undermining hopes that

humans could soon have life-saving heart, liver or kidney transplants from

specially bred GM pigs. No near-human trials are even near development in

Britain.

The virus found in young pigs from farms in Bedfordshire and Suffolk was

very like that found in a patient from Cornwall who had not traveled outside

Britain for more than four years, according to yesterday's report. " Further

work is needed to establish more precisely the extent and impact, if any, of

infection in pigs and people in the UK and other countries, " it said.

But " limited data " so far suggested transmission between species could not

be ruled out. The presence of such potential animal-to-human viruses " also

has implications in the field of xenotransplantation. "

http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,7890,1154138,00.html

[Guest guest]

Hepatitis link to pigs may hit transplant hopes

Meikle, health correspondent

Saturday February 21, 2004

The Guardian

Britons might be catching hepatitis from pigs, a hypothesis that could

undermine hopes of eventually using pigs' organs to cut waiting lists for

human transplants, it emerged yesterday.

Vets investigating the prevalence of the hepatitis E virus in British herds

found its signature looked like a strain identified in a human.

The disease is rare in Britain, most of the 30 to 40 cases a year being

people who have traveled to developing countries where hygiene is poorer. It

is often endemic in pig herds in such countries.

It is usually mild compared with hepatitis B and C, which can lead to

chronic disease, but it can cause severe liver failure in pregnant women.

Researchers from the government's Veterinary Laboratories Agency, writing in

the Veterinary Record, have warned that the disease, which seems to have

been well established in pigs for a decade, might on rare occasions leap

from animals to humans. Pigs appear to carry the virus without symptoms and

many humans may be carriers too, so hepatitis E might be more widespread

than clinical cases suggest.

Xenotransplantation, using animal organs in humans, is still some years away

but experiments between animal species have been attempted for some time.

Pig cells may help cure diabetes, if experiments using monkeys are any

guide, while scientists have tried to transplant piglets' hearts to baboons.

But there have long been fears that diseases harmless to pigs might turn

into killer viruses when transferred to humans, undermining hopes that

humans could soon have life-saving heart, liver or kidney transplants from

specially bred GM pigs. No near-human trials are even near development in

Britain.

The virus found in young pigs from farms in Bedfordshire and Suffolk was

very like that found in a patient from Cornwall who had not traveled outside

Britain for more than four years, according to yesterday's report. " Further

work is needed to establish more precisely the extent and impact, if any, of

infection in pigs and people in the UK and other countries, " it said.

But " limited data " so far suggested transmission between species could not

be ruled out. The presence of such potential animal-to-human viruses " also

has implications in the field of xenotransplantation. "

http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,7890,1154138,00.html

[Guest guest]

Hepatitis link to pigs may hit transplant hopes

Meikle, health correspondent

Saturday February 21, 2004

The Guardian

Britons might be catching hepatitis from pigs, a hypothesis that could

undermine hopes of eventually using pigs' organs to cut waiting lists for

human transplants, it emerged yesterday.

Vets investigating the prevalence of the hepatitis E virus in British herds

found its signature looked like a strain identified in a human.

The disease is rare in Britain, most of the 30 to 40 cases a year being

people who have traveled to developing countries where hygiene is poorer. It

is often endemic in pig herds in such countries.

It is usually mild compared with hepatitis B and C, which can lead to

chronic disease, but it can cause severe liver failure in pregnant women.

Researchers from the government's Veterinary Laboratories Agency, writing in

the Veterinary Record, have warned that the disease, which seems to have

been well established in pigs for a decade, might on rare occasions leap

from animals to humans. Pigs appear to carry the virus without symptoms and

many humans may be carriers too, so hepatitis E might be more widespread

than clinical cases suggest.

Xenotransplantation, using animal organs in humans, is still some years away

but experiments between animal species have been attempted for some time.

Pig cells may help cure diabetes, if experiments using monkeys are any

guide, while scientists have tried to transplant piglets' hearts to baboons.

But there have long been fears that diseases harmless to pigs might turn

into killer viruses when transferred to humans, undermining hopes that

humans could soon have life-saving heart, liver or kidney transplants from

specially bred GM pigs. No near-human trials are even near development in

Britain.

The virus found in young pigs from farms in Bedfordshire and Suffolk was

very like that found in a patient from Cornwall who had not traveled outside

Britain for more than four years, according to yesterday's report. " Further

work is needed to establish more precisely the extent and impact, if any, of

infection in pigs and people in the UK and other countries, " it said.

But " limited data " so far suggested transmission between species could not

be ruled out. The presence of such potential animal-to-human viruses " also

has implications in the field of xenotransplantation. "

http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,7890,1154138,00.html