Nationwide epidemiologic study of norovirus-related hospitalization among Japanese older adults

BMC Infectious Diseases

Kyoko Kondo¹  Akiko Maeda²  Satoko Ohfuji³  Kazuya Ito³  Wakaba Fukushima³  Tetsuo Kase³  Taisei Masuda⁴  Munehide Kano⁴ 

[1] Administration Division, Osaka City University Hospital, 1-5-7 Asahi-machi, Abeno-ku, 545-8586, Osaka, Japan;Department of Public Health, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-4-3 Asahi-machi, Abeno-ku, 545-8585, Osaka, Japan;Department of Public Health, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-4-3 Asahi-machi, Abeno-ku, 545-8585, Osaka, Japan;Research Center for Infectious Disease Sciences, Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine, 1-4-3 Asahi-machi, Abeno-ku, 545-8585, Osaka, Japan;Global Vaccine Business Unit, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, 1-1 Nihonbashi-Honcho 2-chome, Chuo-ku, 103-8668, Tokyo, Japan;

关键词: Older adults;    Epidemiology;    Hospitalization;    Mortality;    Norovirus gastroenteritis;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12879-019-4007-2

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundOlder adults are vulnerable to hospitalization or death from norovirus infection, but the actual disease burden remains unknown. Therefore, we conducted a nationwide survey to estimate the number of inpatients with norovirus gastroenteritis and associated deaths among Japanese older adults.MethodsWe performed a nationwide two-step query targeting 4184 hospital departments selected from 17,575 departments using stratified random sampling according to the number of beds. We asked each department to complete a mail-back questionnaire on the annual numbers of inpatients with infectious gastroenteritis and associated deaths between administrative years 2012 and 2014, and the implementation status of norovirus infection testing. In a second query, we investigated the annual number of inpatients with norovirus gastroenteritis and associated deaths in departments that had reported infectious gastroenteritis inpatients in the first query. Clinical information was collected for inpatients with norovirus gastroenteritis in administrative year 2014.ResultsNorovirus testing for patients hospitalized for acute gastroenteritis was routinely conducted in 16% of the responding departments. Although half the departments responded that some acute gastroenteritis inpatients received such testing but others did not. In this situation, numbers of inpatients with norovirus gastroenteritis in Japan were estimated as 31,800 (95% CI: 25,700-37,900) in administrative year 2012, 21,600 (95% CI: 17,700–25,500) in administrative year 2013, and 15,700 (95% CI: 12,900–18,500) in administrative year 2014. The estimated number of associated deaths was approximately 600 in each administrative year. Factors associated with death included higher age, living in long-term care facilities, underlying illnesses such as chronic respiratory diseases, and complications such as aspiration pneumonia.ConclusionsThe actual number of norovirus inpatient would be higher than the estimated here due to the low rate of routinely implemented norovirus testing. Considering Japan’s rapidly aging society and the disease burden of norovirus infection among Japanese older adults, it is important to protect this high-risk population from norovirus infection.

【 授权许可】

CC BY