Human astrovirus outbreak in a daycare center and propagation among household contacts

Abstract

first_pagesettings Open AccessArticle Human Astrovirus Outbreak in a Daycare Center and Propagation among Household Contacts by Ignacio Parrón 1,2,*ORCID,Elsa Plasencia 1,Thais Cornejo-Sánchez 3,Mireia Jané 2,4,5ORCID,Cristina Pérez 1,Conchita Izquierdo 4,Susana Guix 6,7ORCID,Àngela Domínguez 2,5ORCID andon behalf of the Working Group for the Study of Acute Gastroenteritis Outbreaks in Catalonia 1 Sub-Direcció Regional a Barcelona del Departament de Salut, 08005 Barcelona, Spain 2 Departament de Medicina, Universitat de Barcelona, 08036 Barcelona, Spain 3 Departament de Microbiologia, Vall d'Hebrón Hospital, 08035 Barcelona, Spain 4 Sub-Direcció General de Vigilància i Resposta a Emergències de Salut Pública, 08005 Barcelona, Spain 5 CIBER Epidemiologia y Salud Pública, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain 6 Grup de Virus Entérics, Departament de Genètica Microbiologia i Estadística, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Spain 7 Institut de Recerca en Nutrició i Seguretat Alimentària (INSA-UB), Universitat de Barcelona, 08921 Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Spain * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Membership of the Working Group for the Study of Acute Gastroenteritis Outbreaks in Catalonia is provided in the Acknowledgments. Academic Editor: Stacey Schultz-Cherry Viruses 2021, 13(6), 1100; https://doi.org/10.3390/v13061100 Received: 2 May 2021 / Revised: 28 May 2021 / Accepted: 3 June 2021 / Published: 9 June 2021 (This article belongs to the Special Issue Gastroenteritis Viruses 2021) Download PDF Browse Figure Review Reports Citation Export Abstract We investigated an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis due to human astrovirus in a daycare center, describing the transmission mechanism, the most affected age groups, conditioning factors and the extent of the outbreak among household contacts of the daycare center attenders. Data were collected from persons exposed at the daycare center and their home contacts. Fecal samples from affected and non-affected daycare center attenders were analyzed for viruses causing acute gastroenteritis by RT-PCR. The percentage of households affected and the attack rates (AR) were calculated. The attack rates were compared using the rate ratio (RR) with 95% confidence intervals. Information was obtained from 245 people (76 attenders and 169 contacts) of whom 49 were clinical cases. Five HAstV-4, two HAstV-8 and three non-typable HAstV cases were identified (six from clinical cases and four from asymptomatic infected people). The global AR was 20% (41.2% in children aged < 2 years). Data were obtained from 67 households: 20 households of affected attenders and 47 of non-affected attendees. Household contacts of affected attenders had a higher AR (74.3%) than that of non-affected attendees (2.4%). We found asymptomatic infections amongst daycare attendees. The transmission of HAstV during the outbreak was not limited to the daycare center but extended to household contacts of both affected and non-affected attenders.