TY - JOUR AU - Aizawa, Yuta AU - Watanabe, Kanako AU - Oishi, Tomohiro AU - Hirano, Harunobu AU - Hasegawa, Isao AU - Saitoh, Akihiko T1 - Role of Maternal Antibodies in Infants with Severe Diseases Related to Human Parechovirus Type 3 T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2015 VL - 21 IS - 11 SP - 1966 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Human parechovirus type 3 (HPeV3) is an emerging pathogen that causes sepsis and meningoencephalitis in young infants. To test the hypothesis that maternal antibodies can protect this population, we measured neutralizing antibody titers (NATs) to HPeV3 and other genotypes (HPeV1 and HPeV6) in 175 cord blood samples in Japan. The seropositivity rate (>1:32) for HPeV3 was 61%, similar to that for the other genotypes, but decreased significantly as maternal age increased (p<0.001). Furthermore, during the 2014 HPeV3 epidemic, prospective measurement of NATs to HPeV3 in 45 patients with severe diseases caused by HPeV3 infection showed low NATs (<1:16) at onset and persistently high NATs (>1:512) until age 6 months. All intravenous immunoglobulin samples tested elicited high NATs to HPeV3. Our findings indicate that maternal antibodies to HPeV3 may help protect young infants from severe diseases related to HPeV3 and that antibody supplementation may benefit these patients. KW - Human parechovirus type 3 KW - emerging infection KW - antibody KW - neonates KW - infants KW - intravenous immunoglobulin KW - maternal age KW - sepsis KW - meningoencephalitis KW - viruses DO - 10.3201/eid2111.150267 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/21/11/15-0267_article ER - End of Reference