The age-specific prevalence of human parvovirus immunity in Victoria, Australia compared with other parts of the world

The age-specific immunity to human parvovirus infection was estimated in Vi ctoria, Australia using prospectively collected samples from the Royal Chil dren's Hospital, the Royal Women's Hospital and the Australian Red Cross Bl ood Service and from sera stored at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Refer ence Laboratory (VIDRL). All testing was performed at VIDRL using a commerc ial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Biotrin). Of the 824 sera tested, 28 % of those drawn from people aged 0-9 years contained protective antibodie s to human parvovirus. This rose to 51 % in the next decade of life. There was then a slow rise to about 78 % immunity over 50 years of age. An analys is of all requests for parvovirus serology at VIDRL from 1992 to 1998 sugge sted that parvovirus tended to occur in 4-year cycles, with 2 epidemic year s followed by 2 endemic years. A review of published reports of parvovirus immunity suggested that parvovirus infection may be more common, with a cor respondingly higher proportion of the community immune, in temperate as opp osed to tropical countries.