Hepatitis E virus infections can be fatal in pregnant women, but until recently doctors thought the disease was confined to China, India and developing countries.

Pigs carry hepatitis E virus (HEV), which they can pass on to humans. But now research from Japan published in Online Open Access journal BMC Veterinary Research says that pigs get HEV early enough to minimise the risk of human infection. The scenario humans need to worry about would occur if the infection rate in pigs drops. At low infection rates, there is actually a higher chance pigs will pass on HEV to humans at slaughter.