Salivirus in Children and Its Association with Childhood Acute Gastroenteritis: A Paired Case-Control Study

Salivirus was recently discovered in children with gastroenteritis and in sewage. Though a causative role for salivirus in childhood gastroenteritis was suggested in the previous study, the relationship between salivirus and acute gastroenteritis has not yet been clearly clarified. The sewage strain reported by Ng, although represented by incomplete genome sequencing data, was distinct from previously reported saliviruses, and had not previously been detected in humans. A case-control study examining 461 paired stool samples from children with diarrhea and healthy controls (1:1) was conducted in this study. Also, common diarrheal viruses were detected and complete genome of a salivirus was determined. Results showed that salivirus was detected in 16 (3.5%) and 13 (2.8%) of the case and control samples, respectively; no differences in detection rates (p=0.571) or mean values of viral loads (p=0.400) were observed between the groups. Multivariate Cox regression revealed no association between salivirus and gastroenteritis (p=0.774). The data also demonstrated that salivirus infection did not exacerbate clinical symptoms of gastroenteritis in children. Furthermore, complete genome sequence of a salivirus recovered from the feces of a child with diarrhea (i.e., SaliV-FHB) shared a 99% nucleotide identity with the sewage strain. In conclusion, a paired case-control study did not support a causative role for salivirus strains detected in this study with pediatric gastroenteritis. This study also demonstrated that all known saliviruses can be detected in the feces of children with or without gastroenteritis.