Pediatric migration and hepatitis A risk in host population

Hepatitis A virus (HAV) circulation in a given area is closely related to socioeconomic standards. Following the improvement of living conditions, HAV seroprevalence rates in the population have decreased steadily during the last decades in many Western European countries, including Italy, thereby leading to a shift of risk of disease towards older age groups. Since the severity of the disease closely parallels age, a higher incidence of symptomatic cases in adults is now reported in Europe and the United States, being travel-related to a large extent. Intrafamilial person-to-person spread is also an important source of infection and transmission from children to parents may occur due to the lack of immunity in the general population. In the last two decades, Italy has been the destination of an increasing number of migrants from developing countries, where HAV is highly endemic. Furthermore, international adoption programmes cause pediatric populations from HAV endemic countries to increase in low endemic areas, possibly leading to secondary cases in close contacts.7 The aim of this paper is to report the epidemic HAV outbreak which occurred among the voluntary nursing staff of a pediatric Rwandan refugee community hosted in a village of the Brescia Province, in northern Italy.