Patterns of enteric infections in a population-wide cohort study of sequelae, British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

We assessed patterns of enteric infections caused by 14 pathogens, in a longitudinal cohort study of sequelae in British Columbia (BC) Canada, 2005-2014. Our population cohort of 5.8 million individuals was followed for an average of 7.5 years/person; during this time, 40 523 individuals experienced 42 308 incident laboratory-confirmed, provincially reported enteric infections (96.4 incident infections per 100 000 person-years). Most individuals (38 882/40 523; 96%) had only one, but 4% had multiple concurrent infections or more than one infection across the study. Among individuals with more than one infection, the pathogens and combinations occurring most frequently per individual matched the pathogens occurring most frequently in the BC population. An additional 298 557 new fee-for-service physician visits and hospitalisations for enteric infections, that did not coincide with a reported enteric infection, also occurred, and some may be potentially unreported enteric infections. Our findings demonstrate that sequelae risk analyses should explore the possible impacts of multiple infections, and that estimating risk for individuals who may have had a potentially unreported enteric infection is warranted.