Abstract: Provided are methods for detecting hepatitis A virus (HAV) and HAV genotypes I and III by capturing whole hepatitis A virus with antibodies specific to hepatitis A virus, generating a cDNA copy of the RNA by reverse transcription in the presence of a negative strand primer having the sequence defined by SEQ ID NO:1, amplifying the cDNA by polymerase chain reaction with both the negative strand primer and a labelled or unlabelled positive strand primer having the sequence defined by SEQ ID NO: 2, and detecting the amplified cDNA by hybridization with either or both of the probes defined by SEQ ID NO:3 and SEQ ID NO:4 or by detection of label, wherein the presence of detectable hybridization or amplification indicates the presence of hepatitis A virus. Also provided are DNA primers and probes from the amino-terminal portion of the VPI region of the HAV genome that selectively hybridize with HAV, HAV genotype I and HAV genotype III and can amplify the amino-terminal portion of the VP1 region of HAV.