Prevalence of minor intestinal viruses in patients with acute gastroenteritis and in wastewater of Minsk and Minsk region

Objective. To assess the detection frequency of rare (minor) enteric viruses in patients with acute gastroenteritis in the capital region of the Republic of Belarus, and to study the prevalence of them in general population based on wastewater analysis, with the subsequent establishment of their genotypes.

Materials and methods. Acute gastroenteritis (AGE) of viral etiology is caused by a wide range of different viruses, the prevalence of individual types of which varies significantly in different countries. 235 fecal samples of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) patients and 233 wastewater samples were analyzed during 2022. Detection of rotaviruses (RV), noroviruses of genogroups 1 and 2 (NoV 1 and 2), adenoviruses F (AdV), enteroviruses (EV), astroviruses (AsV), sapoviruses (SpV), parechoviruses (PEV), bocaviruses (BoV) and aichi viruses (AiV) was performed with “real time” multiplex PCR. Genotypes of BoV, AsV, SpV were determined by use of type-specific PCR and sequencing.

Results. It was found that RV (61.3%), NoV2 (14.5%) and AdV (12.8%) were predominant in patients with AGE, and minor viruses were detected in a total of 6.4% of patients. AdV (33.6%), BoV (31.4%), RV (11.7%) and AsV (6.7%) were most frequently detected in wastewater. Molecular genetic typing of BoV, AsV, SpV made it possible to determine the circulation of the following genotypes: BoV genotypes HBoV-1, HBoV-2, HBoV-3, AsV genotype HAsV-1 and SpV genotype HuSpV GI.2.

Conclusion. The obtained results indicate that, despite the low frequency of detection of BoV and AsV in patients with a clinical diagnosis of AGE, they widely circulate in the population and may be the cause of AGE mild cases that have not seen by infectologists and for which laboratory diagnostics have not been carried out.

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