With the arrival of summer, numbers of patient admitted to Shukraraj Tropical and Infectious Diseases Centre has gone up. According to the doctor, infection of hepatitis A and E to pregnant women is more fatal reports Dessanchar.

As the water contamination is high in the urban areas, it increases possibility of infections of communicable diseases. According to doctor, Hepatitis A and E can be contracted through contaminated water, under-cooked meal or direct contact.

Dr Sher Bahadur Pun, virologist at Shukraraj Tropical and Infectious Diseases Centre, Kathmandu reveals that hepatitis E accounts for 30 per cent of deaths among pregnant women. According to Dr Pun, large numbers of patient are visiting the hospital. Dr. Pun said that the heptatice ranges from A to E and all these infections are contracted by hepatotropic viruses.

Symptoms of Hepatitis E include fever, fatigue, common cold, loss of appetite, jaundice among others.

With monsoon at the middle, the hospital received numbers of people infected by water born disease.

From an epidemiological point of view, hepatitis E is an old infection in Nepal, but only recently has its importance as a public health concern been considered from research and public health standpoints.

As such, there is still a long road ahead to clarify the real burden of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection in Nepal. According to the available epidemiological studies, the seroprevalence of HEV infection among pregnant women is between 3.6% and 7.4%, and among Iranian children is between 0.9% to 8.5%, varying by geographic regions within the country and directly dependent upon the sanitary status of each.

According to U.S National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health, According to the epidemiological data, 3.3 million acute cases and 20 million new cases of hepatitis E are diagnosed each year globally.3,15 Despite the mortality rate of 1–2% in the general population,16 10–25% of pregnant women and >75% of patients with underlying liver disease lose their lives due to the HEV infection.17,18 According to a report from the World Health Organization (WHO), ∼56600 deaths occur per year due to HEV-related hepatic failure.19 Overall, one-third of the world’s population has been infected with HEV.20,21

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is generally an enterically transmitted viral hepatitis with asymptomatic or acute self-limited manifestations. However, progression to fulminant liver failure has also been reported in high-risk groups, such as pregnant women and patients with underlying liver problems.