Prevalence of enterovirus contamination in children′s playgrounds, kindergartens and nurseries

  Objective  To explore the prevalence of enterovirus contamination in children′s playgrounds, kindergartens and nurseries in Guangdong province.

  Methods  We conducted three waves of survey at 15 children′s playgrounds and 32 kindergartens and nurseries in regions with different geographic location, economic development, and demographic structure across Guangdong province during epidemic seasons of hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD) between November and December of 2015 and 2016, June and July of 2016. Articles′ and facilities′ surface swab specimens were sampled and tested with fluorogenic quantitative PCR for detections of HFMD-related enterovirus nucleic acid.

  Results  The overall enterovirus positive rate was 8.40% for 238 environmental specimens sampled at 15 children′s playgrounds and 0.36% for 6 089 environmental specimens sampled at 32 kindergartens and nurseries, with a significant difference (χ² = 212.62, P < 0.01). The positive rate of outdoor environment specimens was significantly higher than that of indoor environment specimens (32.26% vs. 4.83%, χ² = 22.91; P < 0.01). The most heavily contaminated facilities in children′s playgrounds were electric rocking and rolling cars. The positive rate of specimens sampled at rural playgrounds was significantly higher than that of specimens sampled at sub-urban and urban playgrounds (21.25% vs. 3.03% and 1.02%, χ² = 25.84; P < 0.01). The positive rate (0.55%) of specimens sampled at kindergartens with HFMD epidemic diseases was significantly higher than that (0.26%) of specimens sampled at kindergartens without the epidemic (χ² = 3.97, P < 0.05). For the specimens sampled at kindergartens and nurseries, the overall positive rate in HFMD epidemic seasons were significantly higher than that during other periods (0.59% vs. 0.13%, χ² = 6.43, P = 0.01).

  Conclusion  There are environment contaminations of enterovirus in children′s playgrounds, kindergartens and nurseries and the contamination is more prevalent in children′s playgrounds in Guangdong province.