María Cabrerizo Sanz
Senior Researcher, Head of the Enterovirus and Viral Gastroenteritis Unit (Reference and Research Laboratory for Immunopreventable Viral Diseases), Centro Nacional de Microbiología, Instituto de Salud Carlos III
At the moment, I cannot assess whether the figures are alarming or not, but from the data we have at the Enterovirus Reference Laboratory of the National Microbiology Centre and from discussions with other clinicians, it does not appear that there has been an increase in cases of neonates with enterovirus myocarditis in Spain.
Nor do we have news that what has been reported from Wales (UK) is occurring in other European countries. However, the European Network for the Study of Non-polio Enteroviruses (ENPEN) is already collaborating to study this issue properly.
Enteroviruses are very prevalent viruses that circulate every year with an increase in incidence usually in the spring-summer months, mainly affecting children. The co-circulation of the different genotypes (more than 100 different genotypes are known) varies from year to year and, while some circulate every year, others circulate in the form of epidemic outbreaks every 2-3 years. To understand the epidemiology and clinical features associated with infections by the different enterovirus genotypes, longer and more extensive surveillance studies are required to investigate which genotypes are circulating each year and what pathologies they cause, whether there has been a significant increase in the circulation of a particular genotype causing an increase in cases, or whether, within a particular genotype, a more pathogenic strain has emerged that could cause more severe cases.