Objective. To assess the possible levels of hepatitis E virus (HEV) circulation in Belarus basing on studying the markers occurrence in patients from high-risk groups as well as in food samples, human environment, and wastewater.

Materials and methods. Four experimental groups were formed: kidney recipients with signs of liver infection that did not allow exclude viral hepatitis E (VHE) infection (n=45), women with pregnancy pathology (n=44), patients with increased transaminases levels of unknown etiology (n=27), blood donors (n=53). In total, 169 sera were analyzed by ELISA and 195 samples of biological material from 142 patients were analyzed by PCR. While detecting HEV in the environment reservoirs, 110 samples including washes from environmental objects (n=29), wastewater (n=59), food products (n=22) were studied by PCR.

Results. Among the examined patients of the experimental groups, HEV RNA was detected only in the kidney recipients, the detection frequency was 5.3%. In one patient from this group, the acute HEV diagnosis developed in the late post-transplant period was characterized by the blood serum rather high viral load and was laboratory-confirmed. According to the results of the serological analysis IgM to HEV were detected in 3.6% of patients, IgG — in 6.5% of patients. Studies of the washes from environmental objects, samples of wastewater, and food products for HEV detection gave negative results. The data obtained confirmed presence of HEV active circulation among the country population.