Etiology of acute intestinal infections of viral character in the Altai territory

BACKGROUND: The Incidence of acute intestinal infections (AII) is generally maintained at a high level. Significant progress made in the field of laboratory diagnostics allowed us to proceed to a detailed study of the etiological structure of AII, and as a result, it was found that in recent years the role of pathogens of a viral nature has significantly increased, but a detailed study of the characteristics of these infections requires further research.

AIMS: To study the structure and clinical and laboratory features of intestinal infections of viral etiology in adult hospitalized patients in the Altai Territory.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: From 2017 to 2020, a single-stage study was conducted of 67 patients of an infectious hospital with AII of viral etiology, aged from 18 to 76 years, hospitalized in the infectious departments of the “City Hospital No. 5”, Barnaul. In order to determine the structure of AII, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method with hybridization-fluorescence detection “AmpliSens ® AII screen-FL”, bacteriological and serological methods were used. Taking into account the results of laboratory examination (molecular-genetic, bacteriological and serological), all patients were divided into 3 groups: group 1 ― 45 patients with viral monoinfection (67.2%), group 2 ― 9 patients with viral mixed infection (13.4%) and group 3 ― 13 patients with combined viral ― bacterial etiology (19.4%). Data processing and graphical representation were performed using computer programs Statistica 10.0 (Russian version) (Russia), Excel 2010 (Windows 10).

RESULTS: As a result of the study, it was found that among the AII of viral etiology, 67.2% had monoviral AII and 32.8% had mixed AII-mixed viral (13.4%) and viral-bacterial etiology (19.4%). Among monoviral AII dominated norovirus infection (in 52,9%). Noted that the differences of clinical and laboratory parameters of the monoviral and mixed-viral infections have not been found, and there were no differences in groups of monoviral infections: rotavirus, adenovirus and norovirus, which is consistent with earlier data. As well as co-infection of salmonellosis, in combination with one and/or several viruses, more often occurred with febrile syndrome, watery diarrhea and abdominal pain.

CONCLUSION: Thus, in adult patients in the conditions of an infectious hospital, mono-and mixed-virus infection (in combination with two or more viruses or bacteria) was detected in the structure of viral AII by PCR. There was no statistically significant difference in clinical and laboratory parameters in the study groups due to the insufficient sample size and the feasibility of conducting further studies using a similar protocol with a larger number of patients.