Striking Decrease of Enteroviral Meningitis in Children During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Larissa Stoffel; Philipp K A Agyeman; Kristina Keitel; Maria Teresa Barbani; Andrea Duppenthaler; Matthias V Kopp; Christoph Aebi

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofab115

Striking Decrease of Enteroviral Meningitis in Children During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2021 Apr 8;8(6):ofab115. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofab115. eCollection 2021 Jun.

Authors

Larissa Stoffel¹, Philipp K A Agyeman¹, Kristina Keitel², Maria Teresa Barbani³, Andrea Duppenthaler¹, Matthias V Kopp^{1

4}, Christoph Aebi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
² Department of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
³ Institute for Infectious Diseases, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
⁴ Airway Research Center North (ARCN), Member of the German Lung Research Center (DZL), University of Luebeck, Luebeck, Germany.

Abstract

We report the unprecedented complete absence of pediatric enteroviral meningitis in 2020 in the area of Bern, Switzerland. Presumably an unintended effect of coronavirus disease 2019 public health measures, this finding highlights the potential of community-wide nonpharmaceutical interventions for controlling the circulation of a major pediatric pathogen, which is mainly transmitted by the fecal-oral route.

Keywords: COVID-19; Enterovirus; SARS-CoV-2; child; epidemiology; meningitis.