Why the study?
With rotavirus reduction following vaccination, sapovirus has emerged as an increasingly reported cause of AGE, but its role as a cause of endemic AGE worldwide required systematic assessment.
Sapovirus is a relevant cause of acute gastroenteritis globally, particularly in community settings and among children under 5 years of age.
Supports sapovirus as AGE etiology in children; extends global prevalence data but leaves optimal testing strategies open.
Acute gastroenteritis (AGE), characterized by diarrhea and vomiting, is an important cause of global mortality, accounting for 9% of all deaths in children under five years of age. Since the reduction of rotavirus in countries that have included rotavirus vaccines in their national immunization programs, other viruses such as norovirus and sapovirus have emerged as more common causes of AGE. Due to widespread use of real-time RT-PCR testing, sapovirus has been increasingly reported as the etiologic agent in both AGE outbreaks and sporadic AGE cases. We aimed to assess the role of sapovirus as a cause of endemic AGE worldwide by conducting a systematic review of published studies that used molecular diagnostics to assess the prevalence of sapovirus among individuals with AGE symptoms. Of 106 articles included, the pooled sapovirus prevalence was 3.4%, with highest prevalence among children <5 years of age (4.4%) and among individuals in community settings (7.1%). Compared to studies that used conventional RT-PCR, RT-qPCR assays had a higher pooled prevalence (5.6%). Among individuals without AGE symptoms, the pooled sapovirus prevalence was 2.7%. These results highlight the relative contribution of sapovirus to cases of AGE, especially in community settings and among children <5 years of age.
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Diez‐Valcarce et al. (2021) studied this question.
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