<br /> A 56-year-old man from Hong Kong has contracted the rat-specific version of hepatitis E.<br />According to Gizmodo, the illness is something never observed before in a human patient.<br />Health officials are now scrambling to understand how this could have happened—and the possible implications.<br />The patient had recently received a liver transplant, and showed unusual liver dysfunction afterwards.<br />The human version of hepatitis E exists typically spreads through contaminated water. <br />
