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Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is recognised as a major cause of acute hepatitis, with different transmission patterns and disease characteristics depending on regions of the world.1 While human-restricted genotypes, HEV-1 and HEV-2, known as the most pathogenic, cause primarily waterborne epidemics in endemic areas, zoonotic HEV-3 and HEV-4 are mostly transmitted after consumption of contaminated pork meat products in industrialised regions. In the general population, acute HEV infection is usually self-limited and treatment mostly only entails supportive care. However, HEV-3, and to some extent HEV-4, can lead to persistent infection in immunocompromised individuals, which in turn can lead to rapid development of liver fibrosis and cirrhosis, and in some cases to decompensation. In these circumstances, virus elimination can be achieved by relieving the immunosuppression regimen, when possible, or by 3–6 months off-label treatment with ribavirin (RBV), a broad-spectrum antiviral drug.1 However, the use of RBV, which is often accompanied by some adverse effects like haematological toxicity, is contraindicated in pregnant women and in patients with renal insufficiency. Likewise, interferon therapy is contraindicated in patients who had a transplant as it increases the risk of acute graft rejection. Beyond these limitations, the cure rate of RBV is approximately 65–80% in patients with chronic hepatitis E. What is more, RBV has a hypermutagenic effect on the viral genome, which may also favour emergence of resistance-associated variants when treatment fails.2 Consequently, patients with chronic hepatitis E who have not been cured by RBV therapy experience an unfavourable progression of the disease. The limited number of patients likely to benefit from a new treatment probably creates economic obstacles that do not justify the de novo development of specific drugs against hepatitis E. Thus, repurposing of drugs that have been clinically validated for other indications, including for infectious diseases, represents a unique strategy to offer quickly and at low costs effective treatments to patients with hepatitis E.