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A large ongoing outbreak of hepatitis A predominantly affecting young males in Lazio, Italy; August 2016 - March 2017

Lanini, S; Minosse, C; Vairo, F; Garbuglia, A; Bari, VD; Agresta, A; Rezza, G; ... Aquilani, S; + view all (2017) A large ongoing outbreak of hepatitis A predominantly affecting young males in Lazio, Italy; August 2016 - March 2017. PLoS ONE , 12 (11) , Article e0185428. 10.1371/journal.pone.0185428. Green open access

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Abstract

The hepatitis A virus (HAV) is mainly transmitted through the faecal-oral route. In industrialized countries HAV infection generally occurs as either sporadic cases in travelers from endemic areas, local outbreak within closed/semi-closed population and as foodborne community outbreak. Recently, an increasing number of HAV infection clusters have been reported among young men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM). The Lazio Regional Service for the epidemiology and control for infectious diseases (SeRESMI) has noticed an increase of acute hepatitis A (AHA) since September 2016. Temporal analysis carried out with a discrete Poisson model using surveillance data between January 2016 and March 2017 evidenced an ongoing outbreak of AHA that started at the end of August. Molecular investigation carried out on 130 out of 513 cases AHA reported until March 2017 suggests that this outbreak is mainly supported by an HAV variant which is currently spreading within MSM communities across Europe (VRD_521_2016). The report confirms that AHA is an emerging issue among MSM. In addition through the integration of standard (case based) surveillance with molecular investigation we could discriminate, temporally concomitant but epidemiologically unrelated, clusters due to different HAV variants. As suggested by the WHO, in countries with low HAV circulation, vaccination programmes should be tailored on the local epidemiological patterns to prevent outbreaks among high risk groups and eventual spillover of the infection in the general population.

Type: Article
Title: A large ongoing outbreak of hepatitis A predominantly affecting young males in Lazio, Italy; August 2016 - March 2017
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185428
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185428
Language: English
Additional information: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Infection and Immunity
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10038839
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