Infant infection with sarovirus G Ⅰ. 2 in Gansu: an investigation and analysis of clustered epidemic situation

  Objective  To identify the pathogen of an epidemic of vomiting and diarrhea with unknown cause in a kindergarten in Lanzhou, Gansu province.

  Methods  A total of 44 samples, including 17 anal swabs from sick children and 27 environmental samples, were collected. The nucleic acids of rotavirus, norovirus, zavivirus and sapovirus were detected by real-time fluorescence polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and the bacterial pathogen isolation was conducted by using the anal swabs.

  Results  In the 44 samples, no diarrheagenic Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Shigella and Yersinia enterotica were isolated, and the nucleic acid detection results of rotavirus, norovirus, astrovirus and zavivirus were negative, but 11 children's anal swabs were positive for the nucleic acid of sapovirus. Two anal swabs with obvious bands were selected for whole-genome sequencing, the results showed that the sapovirus belonged to GⅠ.2, and BLAST indicated that the similarity of the whole genome sequence with the sapovirus detected in Shenzhen in 2016 was 98.96%−98.98%.

  Conclusion  The epidemic of diarrhea was caused by sapovirus GⅠ.2, which was first reported sapovirus infection epidemic in Gansu, indicating that it is necessary to strengthen the surveillance, prevention and control of viral diarrhea.