IJERPH, Vol. 16, Pages 2321: Seasonality of Rotavirus Hospitalizations at Costa Rica ’s National Children’s Hospital in 2010–2015

IJERPH, Vol. 16, Pages 2321: Seasonality of Rotavirus Hospitalizations at Costa Rica’s National Children’s Hospital in 2010–2015 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph16132321 Authors: Katarina Ureña-Castro Silvia Ávila Mariela Gutierrez Elena N. Naumova Rolando Ulloa-Gutierrez Alfredo Mora-Guevara Rotavirus is a leading cause of acute diarrhea in children worldwide. Costa Rica recently started universal rotavirus vaccinations for infants with a two-dose schedule in February 2019. We aimed to study the seasonality of rotavirus during the pre-vaccination era. We retrospectively studied a six-year period of hospital admissions due to rotavirus gastroenteritis. We estimated seasonal peak timing and relative intensities using trend-adjusted negative binomial regression models with the δ-method. We assessed the relationship between rotavirus cases and weather characteristics and estimated their effects for the current month, one-month prior and two months prior, by using Pearson correlation coefficients. A total of 798 cases were analyzed. Rotavirus cases predominated in the first five months of the year. On average, the peak of admissions occurred between late-February and early-March. During the seasonal peaks, the monthly count tended to increase 2.5–2.75 times above the seasonal nadir. We found the strongest negative association of monthly hospitalizations and joint percentiles...
Source: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research