Group C Betacoronavirus in Bat Guano Fertilizer, Thailand

these, 41.2% were characterized as GII.3 (mostly with a GII.Pb pol), 26.5% as GII. Pg_GII.1, and 17.6% as GII.4 variants. From spring to fall 2012, the variant New Orleans 2009 became the predominant GII.4 strain, and the variant Sydney 2012 strain apparently disappeared. During November–December 2012 and January 2013, ISGEV detected NoV infection in 90 (28.9%) of 311 children hospitalized for gastroenteritis. This finding is comparable to a prevalence of 25.2% in the same period (November–January) of the 2011–12 winter season. A representative subset of 45 samples was randomly selected for sequencing, and 26 (74.3%) of 35 fully typed strains were characterized as GII.4 Sydney 2012, which suggested that the new NoV variant had become the predominant strain in Italy. Our surveillance seem to mirror observations of a report from Denmark that documented the onset and circulation at low prevalence of the variant GII.4 Sydney 2012 at the beginning of 2012 with a marked increase in the prevalence only by the end of 2012 (10). Our surveillance detected the emergence of this variant in Italy at the end of 2011 and provided us with one of the earliest strains of the variant GII.4 Sydney 2012. This novel variant has a common ancestor with the NoV GII.4 variants Apeldoorn 2008 and New Orleans 2009 and has several amino acid changes on the main epitope in the capsid P2 domain (10). Sequence analysis of these early strains of the GII.4 variant Sydney 2012 could help clarify the mechanisms driving its global emergence and spread. Continued surveillance for NoV infections through ISGEV and additional data on clinical and epidemiologic features will enable further assessment of the public health implications of the new variant GII.4 Sydney 2012 in Italy.