Master's thesis of Science: Hepatitis A virus investigation to establish epidemiological and molecular database for source tracing during foodborne outbreak

The current research project genotyped HAV RNA by using protocols and primer sets designed by HAVNET. It collected and genotyped previous HAV-positive samples in VIDRL sample bank, and the results were used to establish epidemiological and molecular database of the HAV strains. The database was used to investigate the relationship between the current diagnostic samples and the previous HAV infection cases. It was expected to identify the source of the hepatitis A infection. The project was divided into part A and part B; part A retrospectively genotyped the HAV RNA positive samples collected from VIDRL sample bank, and part B prospectively genotyped current diagnostic samples and compared the result against the database.