Prevalence of Eleven Infectious Viruses Causing Diarrhea in Korea

Abstract

Rotavirus and norovirus are well-known causes of viral infectious diarrhea. There are few reports about diarrhea caused by other viruses in Korea, although gastroenteritis attributable to other viruses is increasing worldwide. The aims of this study were to detect various causes of viral diarrhea and to investigate their prevalence. A total of 801 fecal specimens submitted to a clinical microbiology laboratory for the detection of diarrhea viruses were included. We sought to detect rotavirus A/B/C, adenovirus, astrovirus, norovirus GI/GII, sapovirus, Aichi virus, human parechovirus, enterovirus, human cosavirus, human bocavirus, and Saffold virus using multiplex RT-PCR. At least one diarrhea virus was detected in 223 (27.8%) fecal specimens. Among them, two viruses were detected in each of 11 specimens. Rotavirus A was most common (17.1%; N=137), followed by norovirus GII (5.0%; N=40), enterovirus (4.2%; N=34), adenovirus (1.0%; N=8), astrovirus (1.0%; N=8), human parechovirus (0.6%; N=5), and human bocavirus (0.2%; N=2). Rotaviruses B and C, norovirus GI, sapovirus, Aichi virus, human cosavirus, and Saffold virus were not found. We confirmed that various diarrheal viruses can be detected in fecal specimens. We need to consider the possibility of viruses other than rotavirus and norovirus being present in cases of diarrhea.

Parechovirus A infection and risk of gastroenteritis in children: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…The final dataset included data on young people aged less than 18 years from 18 countries (Thailand, Spain, Korea, Japan, China, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Bulgaria, Italy, India, Germany, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, United States, Ghana, and Russia). Amidst the included studies, 33 were cross‐sectional in study design, of which 31 were case‐only 17–20,24,41–66 and 2 presented data for healthy individuals 25,67 . Thirty‐three cross‐sectional studies comprised 17,226 paediatric patients with gastroenteritis and 277 children without gastroenteritis.…”

“…-3 of 15 CI: 7.9%-13.2%) among 21,850 paediatric patients, with a large between-study heterogeneity (I 2 = 97.5%, p < 0.001) (Figure 2). Point prevalence ranged from 0.7% (95% CI: 0.2%-1.6%) 65 to 55% (49.2%-60.7%). 76 The prevalence of PeV-A infection considerably differed across age groups, with the highest prevalence being reported in cases of gastroenteritis younger than 2 years (17.9%, 95% CI: 9.5%-28.2%; p < 0.001).…”

A Comparative Study of Acute Gastroenteritis Symptoms in Single- versus Multiple-Virus Infections

“…in China and reported that RVA (43.3%) was the most prevalent virus, followed by NoV GII (28.9%) [19]. In another study in Korea, the prevalence of RVA infection (17.1%) was higher than that of NoV GII (5.0%) [20]. Interestingly, a high detection rate of NoV GII infection (51.6%) was observed in our study, and RVA was found at a lower detection rate (21.6%).…”

Diverse genotypes of human enteric and non-enteric adenoviruses circulating in children hospitalized with acute gastroenteritis in Thailand, from 2018 to 2021

“…Epidemiological studies of HAdV infection in diarrheal cases have been reported from several countries around the world, including Australia ( 27 ), the United States ( 16 , 28 , 29 ), Switzerland ( 30 ), and Italy ( 31 ) with the prevalence ranging from 6.0% to 26.0%. Additionally, HAdV infection has also been reported in several countries in Asia, including Japan ( 32 , 33 ), Korea ( 34 ), China ( 35 , 36 ), and Thailand ( 19 ), with the prevalence ranging from 1.0% to 13.5%. Not only enteric HAdV species F (genotypes 40 and 41) frequently identified in stool samples from patients with AGE but also non-enteric HAdVs, such as HAdV-A, HAdV-B, HAdV-C, HAdV-D, and HAdV-G, are also associated with AGE infections ( 19 , 22 – 26 ).…”