Norovirus (NV) is recognized as an important cause of food and water borne gastroenteritis worldwide.1'2 In the community-based studies the prevalence of NV infection has been reported to be 1-22%, while many outbreaks of NV were also reported. The aim of this study was to emphasize the importance of NV infections among children hospitalized with acute gastroenteritis based on the epi-demiological and clinical data. The present report is an adjunct to the study in which we carried out analyses on viral gastroenteritis using the same sample set.Stool specimens were collected between May 2003 and May 2005 from children hospitalized with symptoms of gastroenteritis: diarrhea and/or vomiting and/or fever. Clinical data (symptoms and severity of illness) were determined. Samples were previously tested for bacterial pathogens, for human astrovirus (HAstV), human rotavirus (HRV) and enteric adenovirus (EAdV). NV nucleic acid was extracted from 10% stool suspension utilizing the commercial Trizol method, then was detected by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using the primer pair JV12Y and JV13I.4 The severity of gastroenteritis was estimated with the numerical scoring system established by Ruuska and Vesikari.
展开▼
