Rotavirus gastroenteritis in children less than five years of age in primary care settings in Bulgaria: an observational study

Tiholova, M.; Gopala, Kusuma; M, Berberova; Strokova-Stoilova, Margarita; Tafalla, Mónica

doi:10.11599/germs.2016.1095

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…A scoring manual prepared for use of the Vesikari scale in clinical trials presupposes parent completion of daily diary cards and stringent control by specially trained study clinicians 23 but adoption of such a strict protocol was not considered necessary for this study. The same informal severity scoring approach was used in the companion study in Bulgaria 12 and we have no obvious explanation for the striking difference in the average severity scores observed in the two studies. As mentioned in the introduction, Latvia included fully reimbursed vaccination in the NIP in 2015.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…A companion study based on the same protocol was performed in Bulgaria with data collection during the calendar year 2013. 12 The overall proportion of RV-positive cases was 25.5% in Bulgaria compared with 38.1% in Latvia but both studies found that the proportion of RV-positive cases increased linearly with age and more than doubled for children aged 24-59 months compared to the youngest infants aged 0-5 months. The severity assessments were very different in the two studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

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Primary care-based surveillance to estimate the proportion of rotavirus gastroenteritis among Latvian children below 5 years of age with acute gastroenteritis

Tafalla¹,

Gardovska

Gopala

et al. 2018

Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics

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Background: Rotavirus (RV) is worldwide an important cause of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) in infants and young children. There is no specific treatment for AGE caused by RV (RVGE) but since 2006 two safe and effective vaccines have been available. RV vaccination was included in the national immunization program (NIP) of Latvia in 2015 with full reimbursement, and within the first year a coverage of 87% was achieved. This surveillance study was carried out to investigate the proportion of RVGE among AGE episodes in Latvia up to the inclusion of RV vaccination in the NIP to provide a basis for future assessments of the impact of RV vaccination. Methods: Prospective, one-year observational study of children younger than 5 years presenting with AGE in the primary care setting. At first primary care contact, a stool sample was collected and tested for RV using a rapid, visual immunochromatographic kit. The parents monitored their child's symptoms over 2 weeks after the first contact and the investigator recorded these observations during a follow-up phone call. The proportion of RVGE among the AGE cases was estimated and the severity of each AGE case was assessed based on the recorded symptoms using the 20-point Vesikari scale. The seasonality of RVGE was also investigated. Results: Fifty-two primary care investigators collected data on 606 evaluable children with AGE. The proportion of RVGE was 38.1%. Severe AGE was experienced by 40.7% of the RV-positive and 19.5% of the RV-negative patients. The rate of hospitalization was 9.1% for the RV-positive and 4.8% for the RVnegative with no difference in the mean duration of hospital stays. AGE and RVGE both occurred all year round but with a clearly marked peak only for RVGE, from March to May. Conclusion: This study underlines that RV is an important cause of AGE in children under 5 years old in Latvia and that the burden of disease of RVGE in primary care was substantial before inclusion of RV vaccination in the NIP.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%