Dataset Information

Transmission of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in German households with children attending child care.

ABSTRACT: Transmission of acute respiratory infections (ARI) and acute gastroenteritis (AGE) often occurs in households. The aim of this study was to assess which proportion of ARI and AGE is introduced and transmitted by children in German households with children attending child care. We recruited families with children aged 0-6 years in Braunschweig (Germany), for a 4 months prospective cohort study in the winter period 2014/2015. Every household member was included in a health diary and used nasal swabs for pathogen identification in case of ARI. We defined a transmission if two persons had overlapping periods with symptoms and used additional definitions for sensitivity analyses. In total, 77 households participated with 282 persons. We observed 277 transmission events for ARI and 23 for AGE. In most cases, the first infected person in a household was a child (ARI: 63%, AGE: 53%), and the risk of within-household transmission was two times higher when the index case was a child. In 26 ARI-transmission events, pathogens were detected for both cases; hereof in 35% (95% confidence interval (17-56%)) the pathogens were different. Thus, symptomatic infections in household members, apparently linked in time, were in 2/3 associated with the same pathogens.

SUBMITTER: Schlinkmann KM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9134537 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Transmission of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in German households with children attending child care.

Schlinkmann K M KM Bakuli A A Karch A A Meyer F F Dreesman J J Monazahian M M Mikolajczyk R R

Epidemiology and infection 20180226 5

Transmission of acute respiratory infections (ARI) and acute gastroenteritis (AGE) often occurs in households. The aim of this study was to assess which proportion of ARI and AGE is introduced and transmitted by children in German households with children attending child care. We recruited families with children aged 0-6 years in Braunschweig (Germany), for a 4 months prospective cohort study in the winter period 2014/2015. Every household member was included in a health diary and used nasal swa ...[more]

PMID: 29478420

Similar Datasets

Project description:IntroductionRespiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes a significant respiratory disease burden in the under 5 population. The transmission pathway to young children is not fully quantified in low-income settings, and this information is required to design interventions.MethodsWe used an individual level transmission model to infer transmission parameters using data collected from 493 individuals distributed across 47 households over a period of 6 months spanning the 2009/2010 RSV season. A total of 208 episodes of RSV were observed from 179 individuals. We model competing transmission risk from within household exposure and community exposure while making a distinction between RSV groups A and B.ResultsWe find that 32-53% of all RSV transmissions are between members of the same household; the rate of pair-wise transmission is 58% (95% CrI: 30-74%) lower in larger households (?8 occupants) than smaller households; symptomatic individuals are 2-7 times more infectious than asymptomatic individuals i.e. 2.48 (95% CrI: 1.22-5.57) among symptomatic individuals with low viral load and 6.7(95% CrI: 2.56-16) among symptomatic individuals with high viral load; previous infection reduces susceptibility to re-infection within the same epidemic by 47% (95% CrI: 17%-68%) for homologous RSV group and 39% (95%CrI: -8%-69%) for heterologous group; RSV B is more frequently introduced into the household, and RSV A is more rapidly transmitted once in the household.DiscussionOur analysis presents the first transmission modelling of cohort data for RSV and we find that it is important to consider the household social structuring and household size when modelling transmission. The increased infectiousness of symptomatic individuals implies that a vaccine against RSV related disease would also have an impact on infection transmission. Together, the weak cross immunity between RSV groups and the possibility of different transmission niches could form part of the explanation for the group co-existence.

Dataset Information

Transmission of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in German households with children attending child care.

Publications

Transmission of respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in German households with children attending child care.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets