Prevalence and genetic characteristics of Saffold cardiovirus in China from 2009 to 2012

Zhang, Xiao-Ai; Lu, Qing-Bin; Wo, Ying; Zhao, Jin; Huang, Dou-Dou; Guo, Chen-Tao; Xu, Hong-Mei; Liu, En-Mei; Liu, Wei; Cao, Wu-Chun

Several lines of evidence indicate that SAFV might act as the agent responsible for the clinical syndromes, at least for some of the subjects. First, although co-detection with other viruses existed, SAFVs were the only pathogens identified in 34 (29.6%) SAFV-positive specimens in this study. The co-detection of SAFV with other viruses ranged from 0% to 100% in previous studies, and the variation in results is probably due to different diagnostic assays applied [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] . In the present study, 15 common respiratory viruses in ARTI patients, 9 common viruses in diarrhea patients, and all EVs in HFMD patients were detected. The current results might represent a higher probability of single infection than the previous studies. Still, single-infection by SAFV is only true relative to the list of viruses that are being tested. Second, this study also revealed the negative detection of SAFV in healthy children, indicating that SAFV is less likely to be present in asymptomatic subjects. This result is consistent with a previous study that was conducted among 39 asymptomatic patients in northern Germany 11 . Finally, more severe clinical outcome and manifestation of nervous system were exhibited by SAFV-positive HFMD patients than in SAFV-negative HFMD patients.