Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Apr;146(5):627-632.
doi: 10.1017/S0950268818000316. Epub 2018 Feb 26.

Transmission of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in German households with children attending child care

K M Schlinkmann  1   2 , A Bakuli  1   2 , A Karch  1 , F Meyer  3 , J Dreesman  4 , M Monazahian  4 , R Mikolajczyk  1   5   6   7
Affiliations

Transmission of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in German households with children attending child care

K M Schlinkmann et al. Epidemiol Infect. 2018 Apr.

Abstract

Transmission of acute respiratory infections (ARI) and acute gastroenteritis (AGE) often occurs in households. The aim of this study was to assess which proportion of ARI and AGE is introduced and transmitted by children in German households with children attending child care. We recruited families with children aged 0-6 years in Braunschweig (Germany), for a 4 months prospective cohort study in the winter period 2014/2015. Every household member was included in a health diary and used nasal swabs for pathogen identification in case of ARI. We defined a transmission if two persons had overlapping periods with symptoms and used additional definitions for sensitivity analyses. In total, 77 households participated with 282 persons. We observed 277 transmission events for ARI and 23 for AGE. In most cases, the first infected person in a household was a child (ARI: 63%, AGE: 53%), and the risk of within-household transmission was two times higher when the index case was a child. In 26 ARI-transmission events, pathogens were detected for both cases; hereof in 35% (95% confidence interval (17-56%)) the pathogens were different. Thus, symptomatic infections in household members, apparently linked in time, were in 2/3 associated with the same pathogens.

Keywords: Children; gastroenteritis; respiratory infections; transmission.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Duration of acute respiratory infection (ARI) episodes by pathogen, n = 605 (three pathogen combinations, detected in only one sample each, were excluded); boxes indicate 25–75% of the data, whiskers indicate the 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Tsang TK, et al. (2016) Household transmission of influenza virus. Trends in Microbiology 24(2), 123–133. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sacri AS, et al. (2014) Transmission of acute gastroenteritis and respiratory illness from children to parents. The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 33(6), 583–588. - PubMed
    1. Neuzil KM, Hohlbein C and Zhu Y (2002) Illness among schoolchildren during influenza season: effect on school absenteeism, parental absenteeism from work, and secondary illness in families. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine 156(10), 986–991. - PubMed
    1. Fox JP, Cooney MK and Hall CE (1975) The Seattle virus watch. V. Epidemiologic observations of rhinovirus infections, 1965–1969, in families with young children. American Journal of Epidemiology 101(2), 122–143. - PubMed
    1. Monto AS, Koopman JS and Longini IM Jr. (1985) Tecumseh study of illness. XIII. Influenza infection and disease, 1976–1981. American Journal of Epidemiology 121(6), 811–822. - PubMed