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Parechovirus A infection and risk of gastroenteritis in children: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Parechovirus A (PeV‐A) belongs to the genus Parechovirus in the family Picornaviridae associated with gastroenteritis illness, particularly in children, but prior studies have produced ambiguous results. This study aimed to provide a systematic review of the PeV‐A prevalence in paediatric patients with gastroenteritis and the association between PeV‐A infection and the risk of gastroenteritis. A systematic search of the literature was conducted in Embase, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science, in combination with the reference lists of potentially relevant articles. A random effect‐based model was applied to analyse data from included studies. The pooled odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were used for assessing the risk between PeV‐A and gastroenteritis. A total of 41 studies assessing 21,850 cases and 1746 healthy controls were analysed. The overall prevalence of PeV‐A among paediatric patients with gastroenteritis was 10.4% (95% CI: 7.9%–13.2%), while it was estimated at 8.1% (95% CI: 5.1%–11.7%) based on studies only investigating children without gastroenteritis. The pooled OR for all eight case‐control studies was 1.079 (95% CI: 0.730–1.597), indicating there was no statistically significant association. PeV‐A genotype 1 was the most frequent genotype of PeV‐A infection in children with gastroenteritis. The PeV‐A prevalence in cases of gastroenteritis is higher than that in children without gastroenteritis. However, the present meta‐analysis did not indicate a statistically significant association between PeV‐A infection and risk of gastroenteritis. Given the considerable heterogeneity and various sample sizes among the included studies, relevant investigations in the future should be carried out based on a large‐scale population.