Survey of Rotavirus Infection in a Hungarian Paediatric Hospital

Abstract

In anticipation of a future vaccination program against rotavirus disease, a longitudinal survey has been set up to evaluate the epidemiologic features of rotavirus infections. In this report hospitalisation data and serotyping results are compiled from an epidemiologic survey conducted in Baranya County, Hungary. It was found that rotavirus-associated hospitalisation constituted a major part of infectious gastroenteritis cases (range, 14.9% to 28.5%). A higher proportion of rotavirus-positive cases was recorded when the serotype of predominant strains changed from G1 (1996-1999) to G4 (1999-2000), however, due to the short time period it was not possible to demonstrate a firm association between serotype prevalence and rotavirus-associated hospitalisation rate. In the future, such studies might help to understand if serotype-specific immunity against rotavirus infection plays an important role at the population level and if (re-)emerging rotavirus strains make an impact on the annual disease burden.

Molecular characterization of rotaviruses in mid-western Turkey, 2006–2007

“…Second, in this study a significant proportion of children were outpatients and rotaviruses are frequently detected at a lower incidence in this setting [23,27]. Third, the overall incidence of rotavirus infections is known to vary year by year [28], raising the possibility that the 2006-2007 rotavirus season was less severe in the study area. Fourth, we cannot exclude that we have failed to recognize some factors that might have affected the sample quality during collection, shipment, storage, preparation or the process of antigen detection EIA.…”

Surveillance of human rotaviruses in 2007–2011, Hungary: Exploring the genetic relatedness between vaccine and field strains

“…[35][36][37][38][39][40] In the pre rotavirus vaccine era, two sentinel regions were included in the rotavirus surveillance in Hungary and approximately 7000 strains were sero-or genotyped during a 22 years period from mid-1980s to 2006. 27,34,37,38,[41][42][43][44] Between 2007 and 2011 we genotyped over 2400 strains from eight study areas using the typing protocol recommended by the EuroRotaNet, the first European rotavirus strain surveillance network. 16,17 The most important strains were G1P [8], G2P [4] and G4P [8], with marked annual fluctuations observed at different study sites.…”

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

“…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.…”