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Sera of 103 carriers of hepatitis B surface antigen were assayed for e-antigen and anti-e. Twenty-four were e-antigen-positive, 31 anti-e-positive, and 48 had neither detectable (e-negative). Aminotransferases were elevated in 75% of the e-antigen-positive carriers compared with 25% of e-negative carriers (P less than 0.001) and 13% of anti-e-positive carriers (P less than 0.001). Serum DNA polymerase activity was significantly higher in the e-antigen-positive carriers than in carriers without e-antigen. Dane particles were shown in 10 of 12 carriers with e-antigen, compared with one of 12 e-negative carriers (P less than 0.0003) and none of 12 anti-e-positive carriers (P less than 0.00003). These results suggest that ongoing hepatitis B viral replication is more active in e-antigen-positive carriers than in carriers without e-antigen, a finding that may help explain the high prevalence of chronic active hepatitis described in these individuals.

During investigation of a food-borne outbreak of hepatitis A among university students in a southwestern metropolitan community, immune electron microscopic examination of a concentrated stool suspension pooled from seven acutely ill individuals revealed viruslike particles 17-nm in diameter. These particles were initially coated by antibody contained in the convalescent-phase serum of one of the ill students as well ad by antibody in convalescent plasma of a prison volunteer originally infected with the MS-1 strain of hepatitis A virus. Rises in titer of antibody to this particle were demonstrated by immune electron microscopy in acute and convalescent sera from student patients as well as in pre-inoculation and convalescent sera from the prison volunteer. Two chimpanzees inoculated intravenously with the concentrated preparation of pooled human stools developed viral hepatitis. During acute illness their feces contained particles morphologically identical to those in the inoculum. These findings represent the first reported recovery of the presumed etiologic agent of hepatitis A from a naturally occurring community outbreak of disease in the United States.

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