Clinical presentation of enterovirus infection in children
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Clinical presentation of enterovirus infection in children, and disease-causing enterovirus serotypes in the UK.
IRAS ID
157403
Contact name
Marc Tebruegge
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust
Research summary
The human enteroviruses have historically been classified into echoviruses, coxsackie A and B viruses, and polioviruses. This traditional taxonomy is based on replication properties in culture, as well as the range of clinical symptoms caused by infection with these viruses in humans. Since the 1960s, rather than being assigned to one of the four major groups, newly identified enteroviruses have been given a numeric designation (‘numbered enteroviruses’, e.g. enterovirus 68 to 71).
Non-polio enteroviruses can produce a wide spectrum of acute illnesses with clinical manifestations ranging from non-specific febrile illness, mild upper respiratory tract infection or self-limiting gastroenteritis, to more severe entities such as myocarditis, hepatitis and encephalitis. There are some data to suggest that certain manifestations are typically associated with a particular enterovirus group or even a particular serotype, such as herpangina (coxsackie A viruses), hand-foot-and-mouth disease (coxsackie A viruses (frequently A16), enterovirus 71), pericarditis/myocarditis (coxsackie B viruses), pleurodynia (Bornholm’s disease; coxsackie B viruses) and haemorrhagic conjunctivitis (coxsackievirus A24, enterovirus 70) However, to date the existing data regarding the typical clinical presentation of cases with particular enterovirus serotypes remain limited. Furthermore, there are data both from Europe and North America showing that the predominant enterovirus serotypes change continuously over time. There are no published epidemiological data on disease-causing enterovirus serotypes in the UK over the last two decades.
The clinical presentation of enterovirus infection in children varies between enterovirus serotypes. By doing a retrospective study of existing microbiological and clinical data we aim to capture the spectrum of clinical presentation of enterovirus infections in children who have received care at the University Hospital Southampton (UHS) NHS Foundation Trust and describe any associations between enterovirus serotype and clinical presentation. Furthermore we would like to compare local serotype data with national serotype data provided by Public Health England.REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
14/WA/1024
Date of REC Opinion
4 Jun 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion