High Frequency of Aichivirus in Children With Acute Gastroenteritis in Iran

Abstract

Background: Initially, detection and isolation of Aichivirus as a new member of Picornaviridae family was documented in Japan. Aichivirus species belongs to genus Kobuvirus, including 3 genotypes A, B and C. In previous studies, it has been suggested that Aichivirus infect humans by fecal-oral route. To establish an investigation for the occurrence of Aichivirus among pediatric patients involved to acute gastroenteritis, we developed a reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay for detection and quantification of Aichivirus in stool specimens. Material and Methods: In this study, a total of 160 stool samples from September 2018 to May 2019 were collected from pediatric patients presenting with acute gastroenteritis in Karaj hospital, Iran. After viral RNA extraction, the reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction was performed to amplify the 3CD junction region of Aichivirus genome and viral load was assessed. Aichivirus genomic RNA was detected in 13/160 (8.1%) of stool samples. The highest Aichivirus detection rate was in December (30.7%). The maximum viral load was determined to be 3.9 × 108 copies/g in one sample obtained from a 1-month-old patient. The co-infection of Aichivirus with salivirus and saffold virus was also assessed by reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction, among which frequent mixed infections by 2 or more viruses were identified. Conclusions: This is the first documentation of Aichivirus detection in stool samples that demonstrates Aichivirus has been circulating among Iranian pediatric patients.

Genetic Diversity of Enteric Viruses in Children under Five Years Old in Gabon

“…Regarding SaV and AiV, we observed a relative seasonal distribution throughout the sampling period with a peak during the dry season for SaV and the occurrence of AiV in April and November. These findings are in line with the results described in previous studies reporting SaV seasonal distribution with a peak in the dry season, and high seasonal distribution of AiV infections in January, February, and December [22,39].…”

“…AiVs were suggested to play a role in GE, especially in outbreaks caused by contaminated seafood [21]. Human pathogenic AiVs belonging to the genus Kobuvirus were classified as AiV-1 and are divided into three different genotypes (A-C) [22], with little information available about their geographical distribution.…”

Occurrence of Human Enteric Viruses in Water Sources and Shellfish: A Focus on Africa

“…Aichi virus (AiV), a subtype of the species Aichivirus A (genus Kobuvirus) (Rivadulla and Romalde 2020), was first isolated in 1989 during an outbreak of oyster-associated gastroenteritis in Japan (Yamashita et al 1991) and has since been detected worldwide (Oh et al 2006;Sdiri-Loulizi et al 2009;Yang et al 2009;Chuchaona et al 2017;Bergallo et al 2018;Kitajima et al 2018;Japhet et al 2019;Onosi et al 2019;Northill et al 2020). Globally, the incidence rates of AiV in gastroenteritis cases are low (0.4-6.5%) (Rivadulla and Romalde 2020;Taghinejad et al 2020), yet AiV-specific antibodies are present in 80-99% of the adult population (Kitajima and Gerba 2015) suggesting that most infections are asymptomatic (Bergallo et al 2018). In addition to the low prevalence of AiV-associated gastroenteritis, the virus is often detected in conjunction with other welldefined enteric pathogens (Oh et al 2006;Ambert-Balay et al 2008;Kaikkonen et al 2010;Japhet et al 2019).…”

Salivirus infection: Systematic review and meta‐analysis of association with gastrointestinal symptoms in children

“…A PRISMA‐based flow diagram in Figure 1 shows the search and studies selection process. Out of the total 306 potentially related studies found in the initial search, after removing studies that were duplicate or did not meet the inclusion criteria, 12 studies (15 data sets) remained, which includes six case‐control studies 3,8,21–24 and seven cross‐sectional studies 6,7,9,21,25–27 . In the present study, 8976 subjects were studied (4526 subjects in cross‐sectional and 4450 case‐control design studies) from 13 countries (Tunisian, USA, Nepal, China (2), Denmark, Brazil, India, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Germany, Thailand, Italy and Iran).…”

“…According to different reports from various geographical regions, the prevalence of SaV was varied, Tunisia (1%), Italy (0.5%), Thailand (0.44%), Hong Kong (0.07%), Iran (0.7%), Brazil (1.7%) and 3.8% in Germany 6,7,9,23,27,29 . The results of reviewed studies about the association between SaV and GI complications contrast with each other.…”