Prevalence of Aeromonas spp. infection in pediatric patients hospitalized with gastroenteritis during the COVID-19 pandemic

Aeromonas spp. are gram-negative rods, which are isolated in different aquatic environments, soil, animals and food products. They are responsible for causing acute and prolonged diarrhea, skin, soft tissue and wound infections, peritonitis, pneumonias and severe bacteraemia. Risk groups are kids under the age of five, elderly and immunocompromised patients. Even though Aeromonas are scientifically proven to be important in pediatric practice, the research in Latvia is not widespread. During the period of 01.03.2020. – 01.12.2020. stool samples (n=491) were collected from paediatric patients admitted to Children’s Clinical University Hospital EAOD and Infectious Diseases departments’ with gastroenteritis symptoms. Clinical material sampling and incubation were performed according to standard recommendations and additional in-house procedure. Oxidase positive colonies were selected for further identification with Bruker Maldi-TOF biotyper. Antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed with Vitek 2 system. Aeromonas spp. were identified in 26 stool samples. In 15 samples Aeromonas was the only positive finding, but in the rest it was combined with other clinically significant pathogens. All patients with a positive result were aged between 9 months and 17 years old, 57% were less than five years old, gender ratio (male : female) was 1.6 (16/10). The average length of hospital stay was 3.3 days, antibacterial therapy was prescribed in 16 cases, the rest were provided only with symptomatic therapy and self-limited. Compared to the same period in 2019 the number of patients admitted to Children’s Clinical University Hospital with gastroenteritis has significantly decreased due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions but in contrast, the proportion of positive bacterial findings has increased. Relying on our data Aeromonas spp. is a potential agent of foodborne infections in children.