An outbreak of Coxsackievirus A6 infection in adults of a collective unit, China, 2019

Background: Outbreaks/epidemic caused by Coxsackievirus A6 have been reported continuously since 2008. However, outbreaks caused by Coxsackievirus A6 infection in adults of a collective unit have not been reported. Methods: The nasopharyngeal swab specimens were collected to extract the total nucleic acid (DNA/RNA). The pathogen was determined using 22 respiratory pathogen nucleic acid detection kits. The VP1 gene of this pathogen was amplified and sequenced. Sequence alignment and analysis were performed using Bioedit. The gene phylogenetic tree was constructed with MEGA software. Results: The factory emerged patients in succession from the February 14 and reached the peak on the 18th. The main symptoms were rash, ocular conjunctival hemorrhage, fever and sore throat. A total of 19 workers had symptoms in this factory up to March 31, 2019, giving an attack rate of 8.26%. The laboratory results showed that Coxsackievirus A6 was the enterovirus type causing this outbreak. The risk of illness was 7.37 times higher taking bath in bathroom than that of not taking bath (95% CI 1.67, 32.79). Conclusions: Epidemiologic and molecular data indicated Coxsackievirus A6 as the etiology of this outbreak of adults in a collective unit, a risk factor for the spread was taking bath in the bathroom of the factory.