TABLE 1.

Performance of sandwich ELISA and reference ELISAs with sera from hepatitis E patients, other patient controls, and healthy donors

Serum group	No. of samples	No. of samples positive by the following method:
		Reference ELISA		New ELISA
		IgM	IgG
Samples known to contain anti-HEV antibodies
Anti-HEV IgM antibody positive
Nepal	151	151	149	151
China	38	38	38	38
Anti-HEV IgG antibody positive
Archived	58	0	58	58
China	18	0	18	18
Total	265	189	263	265
Controls
Samples known to contain antibodies to other hepatitis viruses
HAVa antibody positive	41	1	2	0
HCV antibody positive	44	0	3	2
Other patient samples known to contain rheumatoid factor	16	0	0	0
Samples from healthy blood donors (United States)	323	3	NDb	3
Total	424	4	ND	5

^aHAV, hepatitis A virus.

^bND, not done; as healthy donor samples tested negative by a commercial ELISA for anti-HEV IgG antibodies prior to use in the study, no additional tests were done by the reference ELISA for IgG.