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

Abstract

Parechovirus infections usually affect neonates and young children; manifestations vary from asymptomatic to life-threatening. We describe laboratory capacity in Europe for assessing parechovirus circulation, seasonality, and epidemiology. We used retrospective anonymized data collected from parechovirus infection case-patients identified in Europe during January 2015-December 2021. Of 21 laboratories from 18 countries that participated in the study, 16 (76%) laboratories with parechovirus detection capacity reported 1,845 positive samples; 12/16 (75%) with typing capability successfully identified 517 samples. Parechovirus A3 was the most common type (n = 278), followed by A1 (153), A6 (50), A4 (13), A5 (22), and A14 (1). Clinical data from 1,269 participants highlighted correlation of types A3, A4, and A5 with severe disease in neonates. We observed a wide capacity in Europe to detect, type, and analyze parechovirus data. To enhance surveillance and response for PeV outbreaks, sharing typing protocols and data on parechovirus-positive cases should be encouraged.

Keywords: Europe; PeV-A3; PeV-A4; PeV-A5; circulation; enteric infections; epidemiology; meningitis/encephalitis; parechovirus; seasonality; severity; surveys; viruses.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Monthly distribution of parechovirus in Europe, overall and by country, 2015–2021. A) Overall monthly distribution. B) Monthly distribution for countries reporting >50 infections.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Monthly distribution of typed parechoviruses in Europe, by type and country, 2015–2021. A) Overall monthly distribution. B) Monthly distribution of each detected type by country of detection. Poland reported 1 type A14 infection in June 2021 (not shown).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Detection frequencies of different parechovirus types in Europe, 2015–2021, by sample type (A), disease manifestation (B), and patient age (C). Numbers above bars indicate numbers of cases. CSF, cerebrospinal fluid; PeV, parechovirus type.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Phylogenetic analysis of the VP3/VP1 region of PeV-3 sequences, Europe, 2015–2021. Neighbor-joining phylogenetic tree of the VP3/VP1 junction region obtained from the study samples (n = 106) is labeled by country of sample origin and compared with 630 available sequences spanning the analyzed region from GenBank. The tree was constructed using MEGA 7 (17) using Jukes-Cantor corrected distances, with bootstrap resampling; branches showing 70% or greater supports were labeled. Scale bar indicates substitutions per site. A maximum-likelihood analysis of the same sequence dataset is provided in Appendix Figure 2. PeV, parechovirus type; VP, viral protein.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Harvala H, Wolthers KC, Simmonds P. Parechoviruses in children: understanding a new infection. Curr Opin Infect Dis. 2010;23:224–30. 10.1097/QCO.0b013e32833890ca - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wang CYT, Ware RS, Lambert SB, Mhango LP, Tozer S, Day R, et al. Parechovirus A infections in healthy Australian children during the first 2 years of life: a community-based longitudinal birth cohort study. Clin Infect Dis. 2020;71:116–27. 10.1093/cid/ciz761 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Olijve L, Jennings L, Walls T. Human parechovirus: an increasingly recognized cause of sepsis-like illness in young infants. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2017;31:e00047–17. 10.1128/CMR.00047-17 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Harvala H, Robertson I, Chieochansin T, McWilliam Leitch EC, Templeton K, Simmonds P. Specific association of human parechovirus type 3 with sepsis and fever in young infants, as identified by direct typing of cerebrospinal fluid samples. J Infect Dis. 2009;199:1753–60. 10.1086/599094 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wolthers KC, Benschop KS, Schinkel J, Molenkamp R, Bergevoet RM, Spijkerman IJ, et al. Human parechoviruses as an important viral cause of sepsislike illness and meningitis in young children. Clin Infect Dis. 2008;47:358–63. 10.1086/589752 - DOI - PubMed