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Abstract
Objective: Acute gastroenteritis is one of the leading causes of death in childhood. Effective treatment of the disease has not yet been developed. Surveillance of causative enteric viruses has special importance in terms of the epidemiology of the disease and its impact on individual patient management. In this study, we aimed to determine the incidence of rotavirus group A and enteric adenovirus serotype 40 and 41 in pediatric patients with acute gastroenteritis symptoms.
Methods: 1358 stool specimens of acute gastroenteritis cases, collected in the pediatric outpatient clinics from September 2008 to July 2009, were included in the study. The SD rota/adeno (Standard Diagnostics, Inc. Korea) immunochromatographic test was used for the detection of rotavirus group A and enteric adenovirus serotype 40 and 41 antigens.
Results: The viral antigens were detected in 348 of the total 1358 (25%) stool specimens. The established incidence rates were 23.7% for rotavirus, 1.5% for adenovirus and 0.4% for both rotavirus and adenovirus respectively. Although the highest rotavirus antigen detection rate was determined in the <2 age group with 51%, it was detected with high rates in every age group. In addition, rotavirus infections were mostly observed during winter (46%) and spring (39%) months.
Conclusions: The detection of both viruses may be useful for epidemiological purposes. Moreover, since viral infections may have serious complications, detection of enteric viruses is also important for individual patients.