Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T03:25:00.954Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

An outbreak of erythema infectiosum associated with human parvovirus infection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 October 2009

M. J. Anderson
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Microbiology, King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8RX
E. Lewis
Affiliation:
Public Health Laboratory Service, Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, Colindale Avenue, London NW9 5EQ
I. M. Kidd
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Microbiology, King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8RX
S. M. Hall
Affiliation:
Public Health Laboratory Service, Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, Colindale Avenue, London NW9 5EQ
B. J. Cohen
Affiliation:
Public Health Laboratory Service, Virus Reference Laboratory, Colindale Avenue, London NW9 5HT
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Erythema infectiosum (EI) or fifth disease is a mild, acute exanthematous disease, occurring mainly among children, for which a causative virus has long been sought. In May 1983 an outbreak of exanthematous illness was reported in a primary school in North London. Children attending the school were investigated by questionnaire and 162 (43·9%) reported an illness with the features of EI. In each of 36 cases investigated virologically the illness was associated with parvovirus infection. Moreoever, pre-existing antibody to parvovirus was correlated with protection from EI in 16 of 17 close family contacts of cases. We propose therefore that EI is the common manifestation of infection with the human parvovirus.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

References

REFERENCES

Ager, E. A., Chin, T. D. Y. & Poland, J. D. (1966). Epidemic erythema infectiosum. New England Journal of Medicine 275, 13261331.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, M. J., Davis, L. R., Jones, S. E., Pattison, J. R. & Serjeant, G. R. (1982). The development and use of an antibody capture radioimmunoassay for specific IgM to a human parvovirus-like agent. Journal of Hygiene 88, 309324.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Balfour, H. H. (1976). Fifth disease: full fathom five. American Journal of Diseases of Children 130, 239240.Google ScholarPubMed
Balfour, H. H., May, D. B., Rotte, T. C., Phelps, W. R. & Schift, G. M. (1972). A study of erythema infectiosum: recovery of rubella virus and echovirus 12. Paediatrics 50, 285290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cant, B. & Widdows, T. (1975). Abstract from Conference of the International Society of Blood Transfusion, p. 73.Google Scholar
Cohen, B. J., Mortimer, P. P. & Pereira, M. S. (1983). Diagnostic assays with monoclonal antibodies for the human serum parvovirus-like virus (SPLV). Journal of Hygiene 91, 113130.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cossart, Y. E., Field, A. M., Cant, B. & Widdows, D. (1975). Parvovirus-like particles in human sera. Lancet i, 7273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cramp, H. E. & Armstrong, B. D. J. (1976). Erythema infectiosum: an outbreak of ‘slapped cheek’ disease in North Devon. British Medical Journal i, 885886.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, J. R., Cappellini, M. D., Anderson, M. J., Potter, C. G., Kurtz, J. B. & Weatherall, D. J. (1983). Aplastic crisis due to parvovirus infection in pyruvate kinase deficiency. Lancet ii, 1416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, J. M. B., Kessel, I., Gardner, S. D., Eaton, B. R., Pollock, T. M., Fleck, D. G., Gibson, P., Woodroff, M. & Porter, A. D. (1981). The search for a characteristic illness in children with serological evidence of viral or toxoplasma infection. Journal of Injection 3, 316323.Google ScholarPubMed
Evans, Jane P., Rossiter, Mary A., Kumaran, T. O. & Mortimer, P. P. (1984). Human parvovirus aplasia: case due to cross infection in a ward. British Medical Journal i, 681.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerson, A. A. (1979). Erythema infectiosum (fifth disease). In Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases (ed. Mandell, G. L., Douglas, R. H. and Bennett, J. E.), pp. 14531456. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Greenwald, P. & Bashe, W. J. Jr (1974). Epidemic of erythema infectiosum. American Journal of Diseases of Children 107, 3034.Google Scholar
Haire, M. & Hadden, D. S. M. (1972). Rapid diagnosis of rubella by demonstrating rubella-specific IgM antibodies in the serum by indirect immunofluorescence. Journal of Medical Microbiology 5, 237242.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heggie, A. D. (1978). Pathogenesis of rubella exanthem: distribution of rubella virus in the skin during rubella with and without rash. Journal of Infectious Diseases 137, 7477.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Herrick, T. P. (1926). Erythema infectiosum: clinical report of 74 cases. American Journal of Diseases of Children 31, 486.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ischamer, A. (1889). Ueber ortliche rotheln. Jahresbericht Kinderheilkunde 29, 372.Google Scholar
Kelleher, J. F., Luban, N. L. C., Mortimer, P. P. & Kamimura, T. (1983). The human serum ‘parvovirus’: a specific cause of aplastic crisis in hereditary spherocytosis. Journal of Paediatrics 102, 720722.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lauer, B. A., MaCormack, J. N. & Wilfert, C. (1976). Erythema infectiosum: an elementary school outbreak. American Journal of Diseases of Children 130, 252254.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mason, W. S., Aldrich, C., Summers, J. & Taylor, J. M. (1982). Asymmetric replication of duck hepatitis B virus DNA in liver cells: free minus-strand DNA. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA 79, 39974001.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mortimer, P. P., Tedder, R. S., Hambling, M. H., Shafi, M. S., Burkhardt, F. & Schilt, U. (1981). Antibody capture radioimmunoassay for antirubella IgM. Journal of Hygiene 86, 139153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pattison, J. R., Jones, S. E., Hodgson, J., Davis, L. R., White, J. M., Stroud, C. E. & Murtaza, L. (1981). Parvovirus infections and hypoplastic crisis in sickle-cell anaemia. Lancet i, 664665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paver, W. K. & Clarke, S. K. R. (1976). Comparison of human fecal and serum parvo-like viruses. Journal of Clinical Microbiology 4, 6770.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rao, K. R. P., Patel, A. R., Anderson, M. J., Hodgson, J., Jones, S. E. & Pattison, J. R. (1983). Infection with parvovirus-like virus and aplastic crisis in chronic haemolytic anaemia. Annals of Internal Medicine 98, 930932.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serjeant, G. R., Topley, J. M., Mason, K., Serjeant, B. E., Pattison, J. R., Jones, S. E. & Mohamed, R. (1981). Outbreak of aplastic crisis in sickle-cell anaemia associated with parvovirus-like agent. Lancet ii, 595598.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shneerson, J. M., Mortimer, P. P. & sVandervelde, E. M. (1980). Febrile illness due to a parvovirus. British Medical Journal ii, 1580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Summers, J., Jones, S. E. & Anderson, M. J. (1983). Characterization of the genome of the agent of erythrocyte aplasia permits its classification as a human parvovirus. Journal of General Virology 64, 25272532.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tedder, R. S., Yao, J. L. & Anderson, M. J. (1982). The production of monoclonal antibodies to rubella haemagglutinin and their use in antibody-capture assays for rubella-specific IgM. Journal of Hygiene 88, 335350.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wadlinoton, W. B. & Riley, H. D. (1968). Arthritis and hemolytic anaemia following erythema infectiosum. Journal of the American Medical Association 203, 473475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watts, C. A. H. (1954). Erythema infectiosum. Lancet i, 573.CrossRefGoogle Scholar