Why the study?
Echovirus 11 has recently been associated with severe neonatal hepatitis in France, prompting description of further cases.
Highlights the emergence of a highly pathogenic Echovirus 11 variant causing severe neonatal hepatitis in Italy, closely related to strains recently identified in France.
May signal E11 variant spread to Italian neonates; leaves open surveillance and transmission questions.
Echovirus 11 (E11) has recently been associated with a series of nine neonatal cases of severe hepatitis in France. Here, we present severe hepatitis caused by E11 in a pair of twins. In one of the neonates, the clinical picture evolved to fulminant hepatitis. The E11 genome showed 99% nucleotide identity with E11 strains reported in the cases in France. Rapid genome characterisation using next generation sequencing is essential to identify new and more pathogenetic variants.
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Piralla et al. (2023) studied this question.
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