The World Health Organization is sounding the alert for the increase in serious cases of neonatal infection due to a type of enterovirus that has led to 7 deaths among newborns in France. “Based on the limited information available,” WHO assesses that “the public health risk to the general population is low, despite the worrying nature of the increase.”
The alert derives from a report from France where, between July 2022 and April 2023, a total of 9 cases of neonatal sepsis associated with Echovirus-11 (E-11) were reported: with liver impairment and damage to various organs from 4 hospitals in three regions of France. As of May 5, 2023, seven of these had died and two were still in the neonatal unit.
All reported cases had one or more clinical signs less than seven days after birth, suggesting a mother-to-child route of transmission. The increase in incidence and severity in newborns associated with a recombinant lineage of E-11 that had not previously been detected in France is “unusual due to rapidly worsening health conditions and the associated mortality rate among affected children”.
Bassetti (San Martino): ‘supervise carefully also in Italy’
“We must be vigilant. France – Matteo Bassetti, director of Infectious Diseases at the San Martino hospital in Genoa, explains in a tweet – is close to us and some cases will also occur in Italy or probably may already have occurred. this virus in infants and children. Look for it when there are symptoms. No alarm but a lot of attention also from the point of view of the laboratories which must be ready to look for it in the faeces of children”.
Enteroviruses are more risky for newborns
Enteroviruses are a group of viruses that belong to the family of picornaviruses, or small RNA viruses. They can cause various infectious diseases, usually mild, but have been found to affect infants differently and sometimes more severely than older children and adults. There are different ways of transmission, for example in the neonatal period or during childbirth they can occur through exposure to maternal blood or through close contact with infected healthcare workers. A few days ago another WHO alert concerned the increase in myocarditis in newborns in Great Britain due to another type of enterovirus.
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