Why the study?
Enteroviruses and parechoviruses A cause severe disease, but surveillance studies from sub-Saharan Africa are limited, showing variable infection rates and genotype variation, with no prior data from South Sudan.
This study provides the first description of enterovirus and parechovirus A circulation in South Sudanese children, highlighting high infection rates and genotype diversity.
High EV/PeV-A detection rates signal surveillance needs in South Sudan; leaves open links to clinical outcomes and transmission.
Enteroviruses (EV) and parechoviruses A (PeV-A) are commonly circulating viruses able to cause severe disease. Surveillance studies from sub-Saharan Africa are limited and show high but variable infection rates and a high variation in genotypes. This is the first study to describe EV and PeV-A circulation in children in South Sudan. Of the fecal samples collected, 35% and 10% were positive for EV and PeV-A, respectively. A wide range of genotypes were found, including several rarely described EV and PeV-A types. Coxsackie virus A (CVA) EV-C types, particularly CVA13, were the most dominant EV types. The CVA13 types had a high diversity with the majority belonging to four different previously described clusters. PeV-A1 and -A14 were the most common PeV-A genotypes. A lack of representative data from our and other studies from sub-Saharan Africa demonstrates the need for more systematic surveillance of non-polio EV and PeV-A types in this region.
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Couderé et al. (2023) studied this question.
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