Community-based investigation of an outbreak of acute viral conjunctivitis in urban slums.
Nine hundred and sixteen people from 143 randomly selected households were included in this community-based investigation of an outbreak of acute viral conjunctivitis in urban slum communities of Delhi in 1994. During the 2-weeks recall period, 456 (49.8%) had conjunctivitis and 229 (25%) were symptomatic at the time of this investigation. Overall, females had a higher attack rate than males (P < 0.05). The attack rate increased with age (P < 0.001). A total of 61.6% of the conjunctival swabs were antigen positive as evidenced by indirect immunofluorescence assay. Viruses could be isolated from 30.3% of the samples processed. Out of these, 70% were identified as Coxsackie A 24 and 30% as EV 70.
Dr R.P. Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi, India.
N
N
Nayak
S K
SK
Gupta
G V
GV
Murthy
G
G
Satpathy
S
S
Mohanty
D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000956:Antigens, Viral / Q000302:isolation & purification; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003236:Conjunctivitis, Viral / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003384:Coxsackievirus Infections / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011204:Poverty Areas; D011897:Random Allocation; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014505:Urban Population
D000956:Antigens, Viral