Enteric Hepatitis Viruses

Background The term ‘‘jaundice’’ was used as early as in the ancient Greece when Hippocrates described an illness probably corresponding to a viral hepatitis. However, it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century AU :1 when a form of hepatitis was associated to an infectious disease occurring in epidemics and the term ‘‘infectious hepatitis’’ was established. Later on in the early 1940s two separate entities were defined: ‘‘infectious’’ and ‘‘serum’’ hepatitis, and from 1965 to nowadays the different etiological agents of viral hepatitis have been identified. Although all viral hepatitis are infectious the aforementioned terms refer to the mode of transmission, corresponding the ‘‘infectious’’ entity to those hepatitis transmitted through the fecal-oral route and the ‘‘serum’’ hepatitis to those transmitted parenterally. Thus, the infectious or enteric hepatitis include two types: hepatitis A and hepatitis E, which will be reviewed here.