Acute human parvovirus B19 infection in a 6-year old girl with sickle cell disease:  a case report

Donà, Daniele; Visentin, Federica; Borgia, Eleonora; Scanferla, Stefania; Giaquinto, Carlo; Colombatti, Raffaella; Sainati, Laura

Daniele Donà^1,*, Federica Visentin², Eleonora Borgia¹, Stefania Scanferla², Carlo Giaquinto¹, Raffaella Colombatti³, Laura Sainati³

¹ Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Department for Woman and Child Health, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
² Division of Pediatric Emergency Care, Department for Woman and Child Health, University Hospital of Padova, Padova Italy
³ Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, Department for Woman and Child Health, University of Padova, Padova, Italy

Daniele Donà*
Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Department for Woman and Child Health, University Hospital of Padova, Padova Italy, Via Giustiniani 3, 35124 Padova, Italy; Email: daniele.dona@studenti.unipd.it; Phone: +39 3388946412; Fax: +39 049 8213617

© Donà et al.; licensee Ross Science Publishers

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Keywords: Acute Splenic Sequestration, Intravenous immunoglobulin treatment, Sickle-cell disease

A 6-year-old girl with Sickle-cell disease was hospitalized because of fever and arthralgia. During hospitalization she developed a splenic sequestration with the need of three successive red packed-cell transfusions. Microbiological investigations revealed positive HPVB19 IgM and IgG and HPVB19 DNA in blood. Given the diagnosis of HPVB19 infection and persistent fever, she received intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIg) with progressive clinical improvement and discharge after 24 days of hospitalization. This is the first case of acute HPVB19 infection in a child with Sickle cell disease and more than 20 days fever, associated with splenic sequestration. IVIg may represent an effective therapy.