Erratum to: A systematic review of the epidemiology of hepatitis E virus in Africa

In this letter, we wish to correct errors in the previously published article [1]. Although the errors do not change the main results and conclusions described in the abstract of the original article, we believe providing the correct information is important. The major correction is about the genotype distribution of HEV in Africa. In the original article, we indicated that genotype 3 is rare and less commonly found than genotype 2 while genotype 1 is the most prevalent. The correct information is, however, that genotypes 2 and 3 were identified at a similar frequency while genotype 1 was the most prevalent. This error arose because the genotypes of HEV identified in seven Nigerian adults [89] were mistaken to be 2, when their actual genotype was 3. In what follows, we revised the relevant section named “Genotype prevalence” on page 5 of the original article and the relevant table and figure (i.e., Table 5 and Fig. 2).

Data on the genotypes of circulating HEV’s are available for 9 countries (16 studies). Table 5 presents a summary sorted by genotype and also provides characteristics of the sample, genomic regions tested. Genotype 1 seems to be most prevalent as it was found in Central African Republic [34], Sudan [35], Chad [28, 35], Egypt [46, 62, 124], and Namibia [88] followed by genotype 2 and 3, of which both were observed at a similar frequency. Genotype 2 was found in Central African Republic [34], Chad [35], and Namibia [87]. Genotype 3 was observed in one Egyptian child [48], one acute hepatitis patient in Mayotte (originally from France) [82], seven Nigerian adults with acute hepatitis E [89], and slaughter house workers in Madagascar [81]. Genotype prevalence can differ in neighboring countries as was demonstrated by one study in Sudan and Chad where genotype 1 was more common in Sudan and genotype 2 was more common in Chad [35]. Figure 2 shows a map of Africa where countries in which HEV infections were observed are differently colored according to HEV genotype.

We corrected additional minor errors in Tables 1 and 2 although these corrections do not cause any changes in the main text. We have made three revisions to Table 1 of the original article:

The order of table cells was rearranged for Egyptian data by descending seroprevalence to make it consistent across countries. For Table 2, some of decimal points appear as middle dots in the original article, which were revised to be the same as other decimal points (i.e., periods) in the revised Table 2.

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