Food: Possibilities include pork, other meat products, shellfish and fresh vegetables. Water: Recreational water contact. Animals: Exposure to livestock, pets, or other animals. Sexual exposure: A question regarding sexual orientation and recent sexual partners is included. It is not felt to be appropriate to take a detailed sexual history in a telephone interview. As the incubation period of HEV varies between 2-9 weeks, gaining information about the exposure variables will be difficult. A trawling questionnaire will be used, asking open-ended question such as it ‘Is likely that you ate the following foods in the 9 weeks before onset of be at away symptoms?’ Possible responses would ‘yes, home’, ‘yes, from and with an option to specify which type and source home’ ‘never’ of food and if handled raw. If potential sources or routes of infection are identified, then the questionnaire will be modified for subsequent interviews to explore these factors. Rationale for design: Previous surveillance has not identified a route of acquisition for HEV in the UK. In view of the increase in cases in 2010, it is prudent to undertake detailed enhanced surveillance in order to gain more information about potential sources of infection and risk factors. Data Processing and Handling The data will be processed and handled by the study team in GEZI at HPA Colindale. A system is to be set up whereby data from the reference laboratory will be transferred in a timely way to GEZI so that cases can be promptly followed up. Data will be entered into Excel. Data Analysis Data will be analysed using Excel. As this study involves hypothesis generation, analysis will predominantly be descriptive.
Food: Possibilities include pork, other meat products, shellfish and fresh vegetables. Water: Recreational water contact. Animals: Exposure to livestock, pets, or other animals. Sexual exposure: A question regarding sexual orientation and recent sexual partners is included. It is not felt to be appropriate to take a detailed sexual history in a telephone interview. As the incubation period of HEV varies between 2-9 weeks, gaining information about the exposure variables will be difficult. A trawling questionnaire will be used, asking open-ended question such as ‘Is it likely that you ate the following foods in the 9 weeks before onset of symptoms?’ Possible responses would be ‘yes, at home’, ‘yes, away from home’ and ‘never’ with an option to specify which type and source of food and if handled raw. If potential sources or routes of infection are identified, then the questionnaire will be modified for subsequent interviews to explore these factors. Rationale for design: Previous surveillance has not identified a route of acquisition for HEV in the UK. In view of the increase in cases in 2010, it is prudent to undertake detailed enhanced surveillance in order to gain more information about potential sources of infection and risk factors. Data Processing and Handling The data will be processed and handled by the study team in GEZI at HPA Colindale. A system is to be set up whereby data from the reference laboratory will be transferred in a timely way to GEZI so that cases can be promptly followed up. Data will be entered into Excel. Data Analysis Data will be analysed using Excel. As this study involves hypothesis generation, analysis will predominantly be descriptive.