Parvovirus B19 infection in five European countries: seroepidemiology, force of infection and maternal risk of infection

Abstract

SummaryWe conducted a seroprevalence survey in Belgium, Finland, England & Wales, Italy and Poland on 13449 serum samples broadly representative in terms of geography and age.Samples were tested for the presence of immunoglobulin G antibody using a enzyme immuno-assay. The age-specific risk of infection was estimated using parametric and nonparametric statistical modeling. The age-specific risk in all 5 countries was highest in children aged 7-9 years and lower in adults. The average proportion of women in childbearing age susceptible to parvovirus B19 infection and the risk of a pregnant women acquiring B19 infection during pregnancy was estimated to be 26% and 0.61%,in Belgium, 38% and 0.69% in England & Wales, 43.5% and 1.24% in Finland, 39.9% and 0.92% in Italy and 36.8% and 1.58% in Poland, respectively. Our study indicates substantial epidemiological differences in Europe regarding parvovirus B19 infection.3

Rapid Sequence Change and Geographical Spread of Human Parvovirus B19: Comparison of B19 Virus Evolution in Acute and Persistent Infections

“…However, as a group, their most likely expected times of infection may be inferred from standard incidence and seroprevalence information on B19 virus from the United Kingdom and Finland. Both countries showed a period of peak incidence between 8 and 9 years of age, at which time, overall seroprevalence was 35% (i.e., approximately half that of the adult population) (28).…”

“…The observation that the sequence divergence of tissue-associated variants showed no correlation with sample collection dates demonstrates directly that the evolution of B19 virus during its persistence differs from that of horizontally transmitted viruses. However, paired samples from acute infection and after a period of persistence were not available to directly investigate the sequence change, and this study had to rely on estimates of times of infection based on those determined by previous seroepidemiological studies (13,28,33,44). However, the crude model used in the current study (primary infections at the age of 9 and no subsequent sequence change during persistence) actually fitted the evolutionary data closely and restored the correlation between sequence divergence and the estimated year of primary infection (Table 3).…”

“…Primary infections are characterized by an intense viremia of short duration, a rapid resolution following seroconversion for antibody to B19 virus, and lifelong immunity from reinfection (23). In Western countries, the frequency of B19 virus exposure rises steeply with age in individuals between the ages of 1 year and the late-teenage years to approximately 60 to 70% (13,28,33,44).…”

Widespread Infection with Homologues of Human Parvoviruses B19, PARV4, and Human Bocavirus of Chimpanzees and Gorillas in the Wild

“…Three genotypes of B19 virus have been described, differing in nucleotide sequence by approximately 13 to 14% (7,21,41,53); genotypes 1 and 2 have been found in Europe, the United States, and other Western countries, while genotype 3 is restricted to sub-Saharan Africa and South America (7,47,49). B19 virus widely circulates in human populations worldwide; in Western countries, several studies have documented increasing frequencies of B19 virus seropositivity with age, rising to approximately 60 to 70% by adulthood (15,39,48,61).…”

Modelling distortions in seroprevalence data using change-point fractional polynomials

“…About half of adults are PVB19-immune due to a past infection. While the disease is generally mild, most studies have focused on risk factors in pregnant women because of the risk to the fetus (Valeur-Jensen et al, Mossong et al (2008) using monotone local polynomials (Shkedy et al, 2003).…”