Abstract:
The prevalence of HHV-6 infection was done by determining the presence of anti-human herpesvirus-6 IgG (Anti-HHV-6 IgG) using ELISA method. Two hundred and ten sera collected from Thai healthy children age between 0 to 12 years old (mean+-standard deviation = 3.35+-3.33) indicated the prevalence of HHV-6 infection was 88.10% (185/210). All samples were randomly sampling from out patients who visited the hospital and classified into 7 groups, 30 samples each, according to their ages, i.e., group 1; 0-6 months, group 2; 6-12 months, group 3; 12-18 months, group 4; 18-24 months, group 5; 2-5 years, group 6; 5-8 years, and group 7; 8-12 years. The prevalences of HHV-6 infection were 63.33%, 70%, 96.67%, 93.33%, 100%, 100% and 93.33%, respectively. The mean amount of anti-HHV-6 IgG among groups of positive HHV-6 infection (185 samples) increased continueously from 0-6 months old (17.47+-6.32 units) to 27.57+-8.42 units in 6-12 months old and the highest was found in 18-24 months old (33.08+-8.64 units), then declined thereafter. Statistic significant different of the mean amount of anti-HHV-6 IgG was found among groups except between group 1 and 7 (p-value = 0.31). The important associated factors that might involve to HHV-6 infection was the age (p-value = 0.002), while sex, socioeconomic status, number of children in family and child raring place did not show any association to HHV-6 infection.