Hepatitis A Outbreak in Europe: Imported Frozen Berry Mix Suspected to be the Source of At least One Infection in Austria in 2013

Zusammenfassung

We tested 19 sera from Austrian patients with acute hepatitis A. A serum from a 48-year-old female patient yielded HAV-nucleic acid that showed 99.7 % homology to the HAV-sequence obtained from samples taken during the current outbreak in several European countries, which is associated with consumption of frozen berries. So far, Austria was considered not to be affected by this hepatitis A outbreak.