The hepatitis E virus is transmitted by sausages and pork products from Europe

A leading British supermarket may unwittingly have infected thousands of people with a pig virus that causes liver cirrhosis and neurological damage, say researchers at Public Health England.

Hepatitis E (HEV) is transmitted by sausages and pork products from Europe, mainly Holland and Germany. UK pigs do not have the virus strain in question.

Scientists at PHE, a government agency, have traced the shopping habits of infected people and found that a common factor is consumption of own-brand sausages from “Supermarket X”.

PHE and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) have refused to name Supermarket X but two separate sources said it was Tesco.

Two previous PHE studies going back to 2011 also pointed at Supermarket X’s pork products as a key source of the virus