In The Lancet, Patricia Hewitt and colleagues1 report the prevalence of hepatitis E virus (HEV) RNA in 225000 blood donations from southeast England. Their study was based on HEV RNA detection by means of reverse transcriptase real-time PCR in minipools of 24 donations or fewer collected in a 1-year period (2012-13). They defined the rate of transmission from HEV-containing blood components, investigated the factors associated with transmission, and looked at the outcomes of recipients of HEV-containing blood components. HEV RNA was noted in roughly one in every 2848 (0-04%) blood donations tested. When projected across England, this prevalence suggests that about 80 000-100 000 acute HEV infections are likely to have occurred countrywide during the year of the study.
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