Human Parvovirus 4 Infection, Cameroon

Myriam Lavoie, Colin P. Sharp, Jacques Pépin

, Christopher Pennington, Yacouba Foupouapouognigni, Oliver G. Pybus, Richard Njouom, and Peter Simmonds

Author affiliations: Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada (M. Lavoie, J. Pépin); University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK (C.P. Sharp, C. Pennington, P. Simmonds); Centre Pasteur du Cameroun, Yaoundé, Cameroon (Y. Foupouapouognigni, R. Njouom); University of Oxford, Oxford, UK (O. Pybus)

Abstract

In a post hoc analysis of samples collected in 2009, we determined seroprevalence of parvovirus 4 (PARV4) among elderly Cameroonians. PARV4 seropositivity was associated with receipt of intravenous antimalarial drugs, intramuscular streptomycin, or an intramuscular contraceptive, but not hepatitis C virus seropositivity. Findings suggest parenteral acquisition of some PARV4 infections.

Human parvovirus 4 (PARV4), also known as partetravirus, was identified in 2005 from the plasma of an intravenous drug user (IDU) (1). In separate studies that used PCR, PARV4 was subsequently documented in autopsy tissues from IDUs and persons with hemophilia; in bone marrow aspirates from patients with AIDS; and in the blood of transplant recipients, hemodialysis patients, and infants in Ghana (2–5).
In 2007, 199 (32.4%) of 626 adults tested in Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Cameroon were seropositive by first-generation serologic assay for PARV4 (6). In South Africa, prevalence was 36% among HIV-infected blood donors but only 4% among their HIV-seronegative counterparts (6). Although PARV4 presence in IDUs and hemophilia patients suggests parenteral transmission (7,8), this route has not yet been studied and other modes of transmission have not been ruled out. The pathogenicity of PARV4 remains unclear, but PARV4 DNA recently was found in the cerebrospinal fluid of 2 children from India who had unexplained encephalitis (9).
During 2010, to investigate the epidemiology of PARV4 in Africa, we tested for PARV4 antibodies in serum samples collected during a 2009 study of a defined population of elderly Cameroonians among whom prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection was high. Previous exposures to parenteral and sexual risk factors had been documented for this population (10–12), indicating that this population had been excessively exposed to improperly sterilized syringes and needles and that the main risk factor for HCV was the administration of intravenous antimalarial drugs, mostly before 1960.