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Article History

Received: 10 October 2018

Accepted: 14 March 2019

First Online: 19 March 2019

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: This study does not include any experiments or trials. The Ethics Committee of the Croatian Veterinary Institute (Number: Z-VI-4-2144-2/18 from May 15th 2018) confirmed this statement and approved the study.Sera samples originating from anti-HEV antibody positive patients and the archive samples were collected and stored by the National Referent Centre for viral hepatitis infections at the University Hospital for Infectious Diseases “Dr. Fran Mihaljevic” in Zagreb in full accordance with ethical principles, including the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, Guidelines for Good Clinical and Laboratory Practice, Health Care Act in the Republic of Croatia (Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia, No. 100/18) and Act on the Protection of the Patients’ Rights in the Republic of Croatia (Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia, No. 169/04, 37/08). The samples were routinely tested according to the National Guidelines: Hepatitis E in Croatia – guidelines for diagnosis and treatment. None of the individuals were sampled solely for the objective of the present study.In order to keep patient identities confidential, all samples were coded and only clinicians from the National Referent Centre for viral hepatitis infections at the University Hospital for Infectious Diseases “Dr. Fran Mihaljevic” in Zagreb are able to link an individual’s identity with the assigned study number.

: Not applicable. No personal data or personal details are published within the manuscript in accordance with the regulations of the Croatian Personal Data Protection Agency and in compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Directive (EU) 2016/679.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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