Epidemiology of Human Adenovirus in Pakistani Children Hospitalized with Community-Acquired Gastroenteritis under the Age of Five Years

Nazif Ullah Khan, Shamsullah, Shahidullah, Aamer Ali Shah, Syed Sohail Zahoor Zaidi and Zhi Chen ()
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Nazif Ullah Khan: State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Collaborative Centre for Diagnosis & Treatment of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 79 Qingchun Road, Hangzhou 310003, China
Shamsullah: Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Shahidullah: Khyber Medical College, Khyber Medical University, Peshawar 25120, Pakistan
Aamer Ali Shah: Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Syed Sohail Zahoor Zaidi: Department of Virology, National Institute of Health, Islamabad 45500, Pakistan
Zhi Chen: State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, Collaborative Centre for Diagnosis & Treatment of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 79 Qingchun Road, Hangzhou 310003, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-11

Abstract: Acute gastroenteritis is the major cause of morbidity and mortality among infants and children around the globe. Along with other enteropathogens, human adenovirus (HadV) is a major etiological agent associated with diarrhea in young children. However, information about the epidemiology of Adenoviruses in Pakistan is limited or has not been reported. A total of 1082 stool samples were collected from patients with acute gastroenteritis under the age of five years with symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, and abdominal cramps who visited Benazir Bhutto Hospital Rawalpindi and Children’s hospital in Lahore of Punjab Province in Pakistan. Of this, 384 cases with no blood in their stool, negative for Rotavirus, and under the age of five years were recruited in this study. Human Adenoviruses were isolated in the human epithelial HEp-2 cell line. Furthermore, adenovirus antigen detection was carried out by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and then all positive and negative samples were confirmed by nested PCR. After inoculating a clear stool supernatant on HEp-2 cell lines, we observed a positive cytopathic effect in 65 (16%) cases. Using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, HAdV antigens were detected in 54 (14.06%) of the clear supernatant from gastroenteritis cases. However, HAdV hexon coding regions were amplified in 57 (14.80%) fecal samples, mainly from patients ≤24 months of age. The findings of this study suggest that adenovirus circulates significantly in the children population under the age of five years and may be the potential etiological factor of acute gastroenteritis in the mentioned cities. This study provides baseline data about the possible role of adenovirus in causing viral diarrhea in children. Further large-scale epidemiological surveys are recommended to better understand disease burden, etiological agents, and its clinical impact across the country.

Keywords: human adenovirus; prevalence; HEp-2 cells; ELISA; nested PCR (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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