Publications by authors named "Vinje J"

Norovirus is the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) globally. Few longitudinal studies have assessed norovirus-associated AGE incidence across age groups in community settings in Latin America. During April 2015-April 2019, active surveillance for AGE among community members of all ages was conducted through household visits two to three times per week in San Jeronimo, Cusco, Peru.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We investigated a suspected norovirus outbreak associated with a wedding reception in Wisconsin in May 2015. Fifty-six of 106 (53%) wedding attendees were interviewed, and 23 (41%) reported symptoms consistent with norovirus infection. A retrospective cohort study identified fruit salad as the likely vehicle of infection (risk ratio 3.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We report an increase in GII.17 norovirus outbreaks and sporadic infections of acute gastroenteritis in Austria, Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, England and the United States during the 2023/24 season. A decrease in GII.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Astrovirus is a leading cause of acute gastroenteritis in children worldwide. However, few prospective studies have analyzed astrovirus in community-dwelling pediatric populations in low- and middle-income countries.

Methods: We assessed the incidence, risk factors, clinical characteristics, genotypes, viral coinfections, and time distribution of astrovirus gastroenteritis in 443 healthy Nicaraguan children born in 2017 to 2018 who were followed for 36 months.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, like Moderna's, are effective in reducing severe COVID-19 outcomes and have been studied for their immune responses, but less is known about antibody presence in saliva and mucosal fluids.
  • A study involving 203 CDC staff members was conducted to analyze the salivary immune response by collecting saliva samples before and after vaccination, focusing on specific antibodies (IgA and IgG) against SARS-CoV-2.
  • Results showed that salivary IgA levels peaked shortly after each vaccine dose, while IgG levels increased after the first dose, peaked after the second, and remained elevated for at least two months; however, more research is needed for long-term antibody tracking beyond this period.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Sapovirus is an important cause of acute gastroenteritis in childhood. While vaccines against sapovirus may reduce gastroenteritis burden, a major challenge to their development is a lack of information about natural immunity.

Methods: We measured sapovirus-specific IgG in serum collected, between 2017 and 2020, of mothers soon after delivery and at 6 time points in Nicaraguan children until 3 years of age (n=112 dyads) using virus-like particles representing three sapovirus genotypes (GI.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Most U.S. acute gastroenteritis (AGE) episodes in children are attributed to norovirus, whereas very little information is available on adenovirus 40/41 (AdV40/41), astrovirus or sapovirus.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

CrAssphages are human gut bacteriophages with potential use as an indicator of human fecal contamination in water and other environmental systems. We determined the prevalence and abundance of crAssphages in water, food, and fecal samples and compared these estimates with the prevalence of norovirus. Samples were tested using two crAssphage-specific qPCR assays (CPQ056 and TN201-203) and for norovirus using TaqMan realtime RT-PCR.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Fecal-orally transmitted gastroenteritis viruses, especially human noroviruses, are a major public health issue linked to contaminated water, but their infectivity has been hard to measure in lab settings.
  • This study tested the human intestinal enteroids (HIE) model to evaluate the infectivity of various gastroenteritis viruses in wastewater, finding that this method efficiently supported viral replication without needing complex sample handling.
  • Of the 28 wastewater samples tested, 57% showed viral replication, with multiple viral types coexisting in some samples, demonstrating the HIE model's effectiveness in identifying infectious gastroenteritis viruses in real-world wastewater.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: This study aimed to compare the heat inactivation kinetics of viable human norovirus with the surrogate, MS2 bacteriophage as well as assess the decay of the RNA signal.

Methods And Results: Human intestinal enteroids were used to analyze the heat inactivation kinetics of viable human norovirus compared to the surrogate MS2 bacteriophage, which was cultured using a plaque assay. Norovirus decay rates were 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unlabelled: Acute gastroenteritis (AGE) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide across all age groups that disproportionally affects young children in low- and middle-income countries and immunocompromised patients in high-income countries. Regional outbreaks of AGE are typically detected by traditional microbiological detection methods that target limited organisms and are associated with low sensitivity and lengthy time-to-results. Combined, these may result in repeat testing, imprecise or delayed treatment, and delayed recognition of outbreaks.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

After the introduction of the rotavirus vaccine into the Universal Immunization Program in India in 2016, relatively few studies have assessed the prevalence and epidemiological patterns of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) among hospitalized children ≤5 years of age. We used a uniform protocol to recruit children with AGE as well as standardized testing and typing protocols. Stool specimens from children with AGE younger than 5 years of age admitted to six hospitals in three cities in India were collected from January 2017 through December 2019.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Researchers discovered a new GII.4 norovirus variant featuring an amino acid insertion in its viral protein 1, specifically at the beginning of epitope A.
  • This variant was found in samples from the United States, Gabon, South Africa, and the United Kingdom collected between 2017 and 2022.
  • Identifying GII.4 variants early is important for evaluating their potential to cause pandemics and for guiding vaccine development efforts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Norovirus is attributed to nearly 1 out of every 5 episodes of diarrheal disease globally and is estimated to cause approximately 200,000 deaths annually worldwide, with 70,000 or more among children in developing countries. Noroviruses remain a leading cause of sporadic disease and outbreaks of acute gastroenteritis even in industrialized settings, highlighting that improved hygiene and sanitation alone may not be fully effective in controlling norovirus. Strengths in global progress towards a Norovirus vaccine include a diverse though not deep pipeline which includes multiple approaches, including some with proven technology platforms (e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Adenovirus has been linked to hepatitis in immunocompromised children, but not typically in healthy ones; this changed in April 2022 when unexplained hepatitis cases surfaced in the USA and UK, prompting national surveillance by the CDC.
  • The study focused on children under 10 with unexplained hepatitis and elevated liver enzymes, collecting detailed medical data, caregiver interviews, and specimen testing to identify causes.
  • A total of 377 cases were documented from October 2021 to September 2022, with a median patient age of 2.8 years and a fairly equal distribution of males and females.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

While the COVID-19 pandemic has had a detrimental impact on many businesses worldwide, essential businesses, such as grocery stores, continued to operate despite potential disease transmission. Although the principal mode by which people are infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is through exposure to respiratory droplets and very small particles carrying infectious virus, contaminated surfaces might play a role in transmission. We collected swab samples from frequently touched surfaces, including grocery carts, touchscreen monitors, credit card keypads, pharmacy counters, self-service food utensils, and refrigerator and freezer handles, in two metro-Atlanta grocery stores over the course of two sampling events in March 2021.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Genogroup II (GII) noroviruses are a major cause of diarrheal disease burden in children in both high- and low-income countries. GII.17 noroviruses are composed of distinct genetic clusters (I, II, IIIa, and IIIb) and have shown potential for replacing historically more prevalent GII.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Astrovirus is a major cause of gastroenteritis in children, and this study investigated its prevalence and characteristics in 443 healthy kids in León, Nicaragua, over three years.
  • Out of 1,708 samples tested, 80 children (18%) had at least one episode of astrovirus, with a higher incidence during the rainy season and no evidence that previous infections offered future protection.
  • Key findings include that astrovirus-infected children were less likely to be breastfed for long periods, home toilets provided some protection against future infections, and specific astrovirus types were linked to more severe cases, underscoring the need for further research on the impact of different virus strains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Norovirus is a major cause of endemic acute gastroenteritis (AGE) worldwide. We described the epidemiology, risk factors, and genotypic distribution of noroviruses among hospitalized patients of all ages in Bangladesh.

Methods: From March 2018 to October 2021, 1250 AGE case patients and controls (age, sex, season, and site matched) were enrolled at 10 hospitals.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Human noroviruses are one of the leading causes of acute gastroenteritis worldwide. Based on quantitative microbial risk assessments, norovirus contributes the greatest infectious risk of any pathogen from exposure to sewage-contaminated water; however, these estimates have been based upon molecular (i.e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

As of August 2022, clusters of acute severe hepatitis of unknown aetiology in children have been reported from 35 countries, including the USA. Previous studies have found human adenoviruses (HAdVs) in the blood from patients in Europe and the USA, although it is unclear whether this virus is causative. Here we used PCR testing, viral enrichment-based sequencing and agnostic metagenomic sequencing to analyse samples from 16 HAdV-positive cases from 1 October 2021 to 22 May 2022, in parallel with 113 controls.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Norovirus causes a large proportion of pediatric acute gastroenteritis (AGE) worldwide, and no vaccines are currently available. To inform public health measures against norovirus gastroenteritis, we assessed risk factors in a case-control study nested in a birth cohort study in Nicaragua. Between June 2017 and January 2022, we followed children weekly for AGE episodes, and collected stool specimens from symptomatic children.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rotaviruses (RVs) preferentially replicate in the small intestine and frequently cause severe diarrheal disease, and the following enteric infection generally induces variable levels of protective systemic and mucosal immune responses in humans and other animals. Rhesus rotavirus (RRV) is a simian RV that was previously used as a human RV vaccine and has been extensively studied in mice. Although RRV replicates poorly in the suckling mouse intestine, infection induces a robust and protective antibody response.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Human norovirus (HuNoV) is an important cause of acute gastroenteritis and can be transmitted by water exposures, but its persistence in water is not well understood. Loss of HuNoV infectivity in surface water was compared with persistence of intact HuNoV capsids and genome segments. Surface water from a freshwater creek was filter-sterilized, inoculated with HuNoV (GII.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF