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. 2023 Dec 11:152:e10.
doi: 10.1017/S0950268823001851.

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of acute gastroenteritis outbreaks in Catalonia (Spain)

Ignasi Parrón  1   2 , Mònica Carol  1 , Núria Bes  1 , Conchita Izquierdo  1 , Pere Godoy  3   4   5 , Irene Barrabeig  1   5 , M Rosa Sala  1   5 , Sofía Minguell  1 , Joaquin Ferras  1 , Cristina Rius  5   6   7 , Ana I Martínez  1 , Àngela Domínguez  2   5 ; Working Group for the Study of Outbreaks of Acute Gastroenteritis in Catalonia
Affiliations

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of acute gastroenteritis outbreaks in Catalonia (Spain)

Ignasi Parrón et al. Epidemiol Infect. .

Abstract

We carried out a retrospective study of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) outbreaks reported between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2021 in Catalonia (Spain) to compare the incidence from 2015 to 2019 with that observed from 2020 to 2021. We observed a higher incidence rate of outbreaks during the prepandemic period (16.89 outbreaks/1,000,000 person-years) than during the pandemic period (6.96 outbreaks/1,000,000 person-years) (rate ratio (RR) 0.41; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.34 to 0.51). According to the aetiology of the outbreak, those of viral aetiology decreased from 7.82 to 3.38 outbreaks/1,000,000 person-years (RR 2.31; 95% CI 1.72 to 3.12), and those of bacterial aetiology decreased from 5.01 to 2.78 outbreaks/1,000,000 person-years (RR 1.80; 95% CI 1.29 to 2.52). There was a great reduction in AGE outbreaks in Catalonia. This reduction may have been due to the effect of the nonpharmaceutical measures applied to reduce the transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), but the collapse of the healthcare system and epidemiological surveillance services may also have had a strong influence.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; acute gastroenteritis; bacterial aetiology; epidemiology; outbreaks; viral aetiology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare none.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Number of reported outbreaks of AGE according to aetiology. Catalonia, 2015 to 2021.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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