High prevalence of human enterovirus a infections in natural circulation of human enteroviruses

J Clin Microbiol. 2006 Nov;44(11):4095-100. doi: 10.1128/JCM.00653-06. Epub 2006 Aug 30.

Abstract

Human enterovirus (HEV) infections can be asymptomatic or cause only mild illness; recent evidence may implicate HEV infection in type 1 diabetes mellitus and myocarditis. Here, we report the molecular characterization of HEV obtained in serial monthly collections from healthy Norwegian infants. A total of 1,255 fecal samples were collected from 113 healthy infants beginning at age 3 months and continuing to 28 months. The samples were analyzed for HEV nucleic acid by real-time PCR. Fifty-eight children (51.3%) had HEV infections. One hundred forty-five positive samples were typed directly by nucleotide sequencing of the VP1 region. HEV-A was detected most frequently, with an overall prevalence of 6.8%. HEV-B was present in 4.8% of the samples and HEV-C in only 0.2% of the samples. No poliovirus or HEV-D group viruses were detected. Twenty-two different serotypes were detected in the study period: the most common were EV71 (14.5%), CAV6 (10.5%), CAV4 (8.9%), E18 (8.9%), and CBV3 (7.3%). These findings suggest that the prevalence of HEV infections in general, and HEV-A infections in particular, has been underestimated in epidemiological studies based on virus culture.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Base Sequence
  • Child, Preschool
  • Enterovirus A, Human / classification*
  • Enterovirus A, Human / genetics
  • Enterovirus B, Human / classification
  • Enterovirus Infections / epidemiology*
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Phylogeny
  • Prevalence
  • Prospective Studies
  • Viral Load