Among other infectious agents, enteroviruses have been associated with protection against allergic diseases. The aim of the present study was to confirm these findings using a highly sensitive and specific neutralization antibody assay and to investigate whether the protective effect is related to certain enterovirus serotypes. Antibodies against 12 enterovirus serotypes were measured in 60 children who were positive for allergen-specific IgE and in 190 control children. Echoviruses seemed to be more protective than coxsackie-B-viruses and echovirus 11 had the strongest independent protective effect (P = 0.001; OR = 0.35, 95% CI: 0.18-0.67). The results support previous observations suggesting that infections by certain enterovirus types are associated with protection against IgE sensitization.
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