Surveillance of enteroviruses from paediatric patients attended at a tertiary hospital in Catalonia from 2014 to 2017

Highlights • The study reports virological and clinical enterovirus surveillance in Catalonia. • Most of neurological studied cases were from the 2016 spring outbreak. • Rhombencephalitis cases were related to EV-A71 infection. • EV-D68 was associated with lower respiratory tract infections. • It is necessary to perform EV surveillance in primary care settings.
Background Enterovirus (EV) infections are usually asymptomatic or mild, but symptomatic infections can evolve to severe complications. Outbreaks of EV-A71 and EV-D68 have been recently reported worldwide, sometimes related to severe clinical outcomes. Objective To describe EV genetic diversity and the clinical outcomes from paediatric patients attended at a tertiary university hospital in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) from 2014 to 2017. Study design Specimens were collected from paediatric (