Epidemiological and clinical features of rotavirus among children younger than 5 years of age hospitalized with acute gastroenteritis in Northern Italy

Abstract

BackgroundRotavirus is the major cause of acute gastroenteritis and severe dehydrating diarrhea in young children.MethodsTo estimate the proportion of hospital admissions for rotavirus acute gastroenteritis and identify the circulating G and P genotypes among children under five years of age, we conducted a prospective observational study from January to December 2008, recruiting children consecutively admitted to six hospitals in Milan and nearby towns in northern Italy. Typing was done on stool samples by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction amplification.ResultsOf the 521 stool samples from children with acute gastroenteritis, 34.9% (95%CI, 30.8 to 39.2%) were rotavirus-positive. Two thirds (67.6%) were under two years of age, and 13.2% were under six months. The predominant G type was G1 (40.7%), followed by G9 (22.5%), G2 (13.2%), G3 (5.5%), G4 (3.8%) and G10 (1.6%). Twenty-one (11.7%) mixed-G infections were identified: G1+G10 (8.8%); G1+G9 (1.6%); and G2+G10 (1.2%). Only P[8] (67.6%) and P[4] (12.6%) types were P genotyped. The predominant single G/P combination was G1P[8] (39.7%), followed by G9P[8] (25.3%), G2P[4] (14.3%), and G3P[8] (4.1%). All G-mixed types combined with P[8].ConclusionsThese findings show an high prevalence of rotavirus infections among children admitted to hospital for acute gastroenteritis caused by different rotavirus strains circulating in the area studied.

G2 as an emerging rotavirus strain in pediatric gastroenteritis in southern Italy

“…These findings are in accordance with the epidemiological data described in other regions of Italy, in other European countries, and mainly among most of the developed countries [10,12,33,34]. This study pointed out a relatively high number of G1P [4] and G2P [8] isolates which are likely to be the natural reassortant of co-circulating rotavirus strains [35].…”

Global study of viral diarrhea in hospitalized children in Spain: Results of Structural Surveillance of Viral Gastroenteritis Net Work (VIGESS-net) 2006–2008

“…10 Overall, the strains distribution of this study in Spain appears to be similar to what has been found elsewhere and particularly in Europe. 10,11,16 The G9P [8] 18,19 In Spain, the changes in circulating strains had been previously reported. Between 1999 and 2004, the G1P [8] and G4P [8] rotavirus were the most prevalent.…”

Genotypic distribution of rotavirus strains causing severe gastroenteritis in children under 5 years old in Borazjan, Iran

“…Non-typeable samples might be the result of a false-positive EIA, the presence of novel strains, the nonuse of specific primers for rare genotypes such as G5, G6, G11 or the failure in RT-PCR technique (WHO, 2009). Because of the appearance of unusual rotavirus strains such as G10, G12 from South Korea (Le et al, 2008), Italy (Zuccotti et al, 2010), France (De Rougemont et al, 2011) and other countries (Pun et al, 2007;Annarita et al, 2010), in this research were used from the specific primers them for the first time in Iran, but none of them were observed in this study. Overall, 79.54% of hospitalizations due to rotavirus gastroenteritis occurred in children younger than 2 years more than in the older age groups, as was found in previous investigations in various countries (Khalili et al, 2004;Pun et al, 2007;Lacroix et al, 2010;Mladenova et al, 2010).…”

“…Studies of the genotyping in different regions of the world have been indicated that G1-G4 and G9 genotypes are the most common genotypes detected in children diarrheal disease (Jiraphongsa et al, 2005;Annarita et al, 2010;Tatte et al, 2010). But in recent years, other rare or uncommon rotavirus genotypes, such as G5, G8, G10, G11 and G12, have been reported in many countries (Rahman et al, 2005;Le et al, 2008;Mast et al, 2010;Zuccotti et al, 2010). The directed rotavirus surveillance in all countries is significant to determine precisely the prevalence of rotavirus gastroenteritis, circulating genotypes and assessing the need for general vaccination of children and infants, particularly in the developing regions of the world.…”