Human parechovirus is a harmless virus which is encountered by most infants and displays few symptoms.
Suspected of triggering type 1 diabetes in susceptible people, research methods need to take this "silent" virus into consideration. This comes from findings in a study from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
This study was part of a long-term project at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health to investigate if environmental risk factors affect type 1 diabetes. Faecal samples and questionnaires about the health of 102 children were sent in monthly by their parents for closer study.
Researchers wanted to see how common human parechovirus infections were among Norwegian infants. Existing research indicates that a related virus which only affects rodents, Ljungan virus, has been linked to the development of rodent diabetes.
Common virus
By studying stool samples from 102 infants and comparing feedback from parents about their child's health over three years, no significant link could be found between infection episodes and typical symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, vomiting, diarrhoea or fever. By the age of two, 86 percent of the infants had evidence of parechovirus in their faeces, and 94 percent by the age of three. Human parechovirus 1 was the most prevalent type (76 percent) followed by human parechoviruses 3 and 6 (13 percent and 9 percent respectively).