Severe and fatal neonatal infections linked to a new variant of echovirus 11, France, July 2022 to April 2023
Mathilde Grapin, Audrey Mirand, Didier Pinquier, A. Basset, Matthieu Bendavid, Maxime Bisseux, Marion Jeannoël, Bérengère Kireche, Manoëlle Kossorotoff, Anne-Sophie L’Honneur, L. Robin, Y. Ville, Sylvain Renolleau, Véronique Lemee, Pierre‐Henri Jarreau, Isabelle Desguerre, Florence Lacaille, Marianne Leruez‐Ville, Clémence Guillaume, Cécile Henquell, Alexandre Lapillonne, Isabelle Schuffenecker, Mélodie Aubart
Abstract
We report nine severe neonatal infections caused by a new variant of echovirus 11. All were male, eight were twins. At illness onset, they were 3-5 days-old and had severe sepsis and liver failure. This new variant, detected in France since April 2022, is still circulating and has caused more fatal neonatal enterovirus infections in 2022 and 2023 (8/496; 1.6%, seven associated with echovirus 11) compared with 2016 to 2021 (7/1,774; 0.4%). National and international alerts are warranted.