Epidemiological Investigation of the Outbreak of Acute Respiratory Infection caused by Adenovirus Type B55 in a Physical Education School in 2017

Song, Jeongsuk; Lee, Hyerim; Cho, Enhi

A total of 47 suspected cases of acute respiratory infection caused by adenovirus were identified in a physical education school in 2017. Of them, 18 tested positive for adenovirus, and the gene analysis on the adenoviruses showed that the sequence was 100% identical in homology and the type was confirmed to be HAdV B-55. Outbreak of HAdV B-55 acute respiratory infection had been reported in physical training facilities and hospital in China [4, 5] and in a military camp in Korea [20] . This study is the first to report on the outbreak of HAdV B-55 acute respiratory infection in communities, except military camps. https://icjournal.org https://doi.org/10.3947/ic.2019.51.2.119 HAdV B-55 is a newly named virus and known as the recombination of types B-11 and B-14 [23] . The analysis on the HAdV B-14 acute respiratory infection that occurred in the 4 states of the US showed a case fatality rate of 5% [19] . It has been reported that HAdV B-55 caused severe pneumonia in among the members of the Korean military. The physical education School J had some similarities with military camps: all students are accommodated in a dormitory, sometimes stayed during weekends to attend trainings, and performed lots of physical activities. Although none of them developed pneumonia, 32.6% were hospitalized. There are some opinions that overcrowding or increased physical and psychological stress is one of the factors for the of HAdV B-55 infection among adults [4, 24] . Therefore, HAdV B-55 is considered as a possible causal pathogen when the acute respiratory infection outbreak occurred in those settings.