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Impact of vitamin A supplementation on norovirus infections and diarrhea in Mexican children.
Author(s) -
Long Kurt Zane,
Garcia Coralith,
Santos Jose I,
DuPont Herbert L.,
Ko Gwang Po,
Rosado Jorge L.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.20.4.a614-a
Subject(s) - diarrhea , norovirus , medicine , placebo , asymptomatic , vitamin , population , gastroenterology , immunology , virus , environmental health , alternative medicine , pathology
The impact of vitamin A supplementation on viral gastro‐intestinal infections among young children living in marginalized communities in developing countries remains unclear. We evaluated the effect of vitamin A supplementation during 3 months on the prevalence of asymptomatic and symptomatic Norovirus (NoV) infections among 127 Mexican children 5–15 of age enrolled in larger randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled trial. Stools collected every two weeks and following diarrheal episodes were screened for NoV and characterized to the genogroup level using RT‐PCR. Rates of infection by NoV genogroups I and II (GI and GII) and genogroup‐associated diarrheal disease in the vitamin A and placebo groups were compared using Poisson regression models. Approximately 30% of stools were positive for NoV with 16% of the isolates identified as NoV GI and 13% as GII. Vitamin A supplementation had no significant effect on the prevalence of GI, GII or all NoV combined. Supplementation significantly decreased diarrhea among GI and GII infected children (RR 0.55, 95% CI 0.3‐1.02 and RR 0.38, 95% CI 0.14‐1.02, respectively) and also decreased fever among GII infected children (RR 0.41, 95% CI 0.17‐0.99). These findings suggest that NoV infections are an important cause of pediatric diarrhea in this population and that vitamin A supplementation may reduce symptomatic infections but has no effect on NoV excretion.