1. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection in Chinese children: a retrospective study of age-specific prevalence.
- Author
-
Xiong G, Zhang B, Huang MY, Zhou H, Chen LZ, Feng QS, Luo X, Lin HJ, and Zeng YX
- Subjects
- Antibody Specificity immunology, Child, Child, Preschool, China epidemiology, Demography, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, Female, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Male, Prevalence, Retrospective Studies, Seroepidemiologic Studies, Asian People statistics & numerical data, Epstein-Barr Virus Infections epidemiology, Epstein-Barr Virus Infections virology, Herpesvirus 4, Human physiology
- Abstract
Background: Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is a globally prevalent herpesvirus associated with infectious mononucleosis and many malignancies. The survey on EBV prevalence appears to be important to study EBV-related diseases and determine when to administer prophylactic vaccine. The purpose of this retrospective study was to collect baseline information about the prevalence of EBV infection in Chinese children., Methodology/principal Finding: We collected 1778 serum samples from healthy children aged 0 to 10, who were enrolled in conventional health and nutrition examinations without any EBV-related symptom in 2012 and 2013 in North China (n = 973) and South China (n = 805). We detected four EBV-specific antibodies, i.e., anti-VCA-IgG and IgM, anti-EBNA-IgG and anti-EA-IgG, by ELISA, representing all of the phases of EBV infection. The overall EBV seroprevalence in samples from North and South China were 80.78% and 79.38% respectively. The EBV seropositivity rates dropped slightly at age 2, and then increased gradually with age. The seroprevalence became stabilized at over 90% after age 8. In this study, the seroprevalence trends between North and South China showed no difference (P>0.05), and the trends of average antibody concentrations were similar as well (P>0.05)., Conclusions/significance: EBV seroprevalence became more than 50% before age 3 in Chinese children, and exceed 90% after age 8. This study can be helpful to study the relationship between EBV and EBV-associated diseases, and supportive to EBV vaccine development and implementation.
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF