Two Generations of “Gold Standards”: The Impact of a Decade in Hepatitis E Virus Testing Innovation on Population Seroprevalence

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a global pathogen responsible for approximately 20 million infections every year in developing countries, yet remains under-recognized. In this population-based cohort study, 1,025 randomly selected participants were enrolled from Matlab, Bangladesh (2004-2005). All participants were tested for HEV antibodies and total immunoglobulin (Ig), using an in-house enzyme immunoassay developed by Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). In 2014, we retested the banked sera of 1,009 of those participants using the Wantai anti-HEV IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The WRAIR assay estimated the overall population seroprevalence as 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 24.0, 29.5), whereas the Wantai assay produced significantly higher estimated seroprevalence, 46.7% (95% CI: 43.5-49.8) (P < 0.001). However, the two tests give nearly identical findings in those 5 years and under (N = 94) with a 98% agreement between the tests. Retesting populations with modern assays is necessary to establish better population-level estimates of disease burden.