Cosavirus, Salivirus and Bufavirus in Diarrheal Tunisian Infants

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 11; no. 9; p. e0162255
• Main Authors: Ayouni, Siwar, Estienney, Marie, Hammami, Sabeur, Neji Guediche, Mohamed, Pothier, Pierre, Aouni, Mahjoub, Belliot, Gael, de Rougemont, Alexis
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 15.09.2016; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adenovirus; Adenoviruses; Age; Aichi virus; Astrovirus; Biology and Life Sciences; Child, Preschool; Children; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Diarrhea; Diarrhea - epidemiology; Diarrhea - virology; DNA; Families & family life; Feasibility studies; Female; Gastroenteritis; Genomes; Group a rotavirus; Health aspects; Human health and pathology; Humans; Infant; Infants; Infections; Infectious diseases; Life Sciences; Male; Maximum likelihood method; Medicine and Health Sciences; Microbiology and Parasitology; Molecular biology; Norovirus; Parvovirus; Parvovirus - classification; Parvovirus - isolation & purification; Parvoviruses; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Picornaviridae - classification; Picornaviridae - isolation & purification; Polymerase chain reaction; Proteins; Research and Analysis Methods; Rotavirus; Tunisia - epidemiology; Virology; Viruses; France; Tunisia; Germany; Human astroviruses; Reverse-transcription-pcr; Rotavirus; Picornaviridae; Gastroenteritis; Identification; Children; Polymerase chain-reaction; Klassevirus; Enteric viruses
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162255

Three newly discovered viruses have been recently described in diarrheal patients: Cosavirus (CosV) and Salivirus (SalV), two picornaviruses, and Bufavirus (BuV), a parvovirus. The detection rate and the role of these viruses remain to be established in acute gastroenteritis (AGE) in diarrheal Tunisian infants. From October 2010 through March 2012, stool samples were collected from 203 children <5 years-old suffering from AGE and attending the Children's Hospital in Monastir, Tunisia. All samples were screened for CosV, SalV and BuV as well as for norovirus (NoV) and group A rotavirus (RVA) by molecular biology. Positive samples for the three screened viruses were also tested for astrovirus, sapovirus, adenovirus, and Aichi virus, then genotyped when technically feasible. During the study period, 11 (5.4%) samples were positive for one of the three investigated viruses: 2 (1.0%) CosV-A10, 7 (3.5%) SalV-A1 and 2 (1.0%) BuV-1, whereas 71 (35.0%) children were infected with NoV and 50 (24.6%) with RVA. No mixed infections involving the three viruses were found, but multiple infections with up to 4 classic enteric viruses were found in all cases. Although these viruses are suspected to be responsible for AGE in children, our data showed that this association was uncertain since all infected children also presented infections with several enteric viruses, suggesting here potential water-borne transmission. Therefore, further studies with large cohorts of healthy and diarrheal children will be needed to evaluate their clinical role in AGE.