Burden of human rotavirus‐associated hospitalizations in three geographic regions of Hungary

Abstract

Data on hospital admissions and laboratory reports were used to estimate the number of hospitalizations of children aged 14 y or less in three geographic regions of Hungary due to group A rotavirus infection. Between January 1993 and December 1996, 9182 hospitalizations for gastroenteritis occurred, of which 1946 (21%) were associated with rotavirus infection. Most (90%) ofthe rotavirus detections were among children aged 4 y or less. By extrapolation, an estimated 5000 rotavirus‐related hospitalizations (8.4/1000 children aged 4 y or less/y) occurred in Hungary during the study period. Marked seasonality of rotavirus infections was observed, with a peak of incidence from December to February. Rotaviruses with “long” RNA electropherotypes predominated each year, but in 1995/1996 20% of electropherotypes in the Budapest area were “short”. Effective surveillance is required for all children hospitalized for diarrhoea as part of a rotavirus immunization program in Hungary. □Age group, burden, electropherotypes, Hungaiy, region, rotavirus, season

Active hospital-based surveillance of rotavirus diarrhea in Austrian children, period 1997 to 2003

“…Although in industrialized countries the mortality due to rotavirus infection has decreased during the past decades, the disease burden remains high because of high morbidity and high numbers of patients requiring hospitalization [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Several rotavirus vaccines have been developed in the past years, in response to the substantial economic impact; however, studies estimating burden of disease show great variation, most likely because of different survey methods.…”

Burden of rotavirus gastroenteritis in the pediatric population in Central and Eastern Europe

“…An analysis of hospital admissions in Hungary assessing mean duration of hospital stay for allcause (rotavirus or non-rotavirus) gastroenteritis by age, reported shorter hospital stay among older children (6.6 days for children 3-4 years versus 8.3 days for those <1 year old). 15 A retrospective study of nosocomial rotavirus in three pediatric hospitals in Poland showed reduced hospital stay duration in 1996 (9.52 ± 9.77 days) compared to the previous 2-year period (1994-1996: 12.25 ± 13.81 days). 26 Among children admitted for other causes, a nosocomial rotavirus infection-which accounted for 39% of infections in this study between 1994 and 1996 -prolonged the hospital stay by an additional 5.2 days per episode.…”

“…19,28 The remaining countries report a percentage of rotaviral infection of between 32% and 43%. [15][16][17]19,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]33 A number of countries reported seasonality data ( Table 1). For most countries in Central and eastern Europe the season for RVGE is in the winter months from November to May with a peak between March and May.…”

“…Although, initially we limited our search to rotaviral infection in children under five, many of the studies were carried out in pediatric populations that included older patients (up to 16 or in one study 18 years of age). [14][15][16][17][18][19] However, rotaviral infection has the most impact on the pediatric population under 5 years of age. 7 Epidemiology of RVGE.…”

“…2). [15][16][17]19,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] Among the countries with the lowest mean proportions of RVGE were the Czech Republic, Bosnia/Herzegovina 19 Data from the study by Novikova, where the genotype data were more comprehensive, were used instead. 42 Three genotype combinations were present in all seven countries for which complete genotyping data were available from 2005/06 (G1P [8], G4P [8] and G2P [4]) (Fig.…”