[A study on viral gastroenteritis attributed to noroviruses in hospitals].
OBJECTIVE
To better understand the clinical feature of viral gastroenteritis attributed to noroviruses and to summarize the experience on an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis through rapidly colleting and confirmation of related information regarding to noroviruses in hospitals.


METHODS
Information on an outbreaks involving 18 patients with acute gastroenteritis in one hospital regarding its epidemiological and clinical features and to perform bacteria culture for stool specimens on every patient. On 7 patients, rotavirus antigen were RNA tested together with norovirus nucleic acid were examined by ELISA and PAGE and RT-PCR.


RESULTS
(1) Most of the patients were elderly with several chronic diseases. (2) Watery diarrhea (12/18, 66.67%) and few with mucous (3/18, 16.67%) were seen. Most stool examination was normal (10/18, 55.56%) but few stool specimen could be found with some leucocytes (3/18, 16.67%) and little occult blood (4/18, 22.22%). (3) All bacteria culture in stools showed negative. There was no rotavirus RNA identified but 3 specimen showed norovirus nucleic acid positive as 42.86% (3/7).


CONCLUSIONS
Norovirus was one of the important pathogens causing acute gastroenteritis outbreaks in hospitals attacking elderly with several chronic diseases in particular. Surveillance program targeting elderly inpatient with diarrhea should be enhanced, especially in autumn and winter.
Chen
Mei-fang
MF
Infectious Disease Department of Peking University Renmin Hospital, Beijing 100044, China.
Gao
Yan
Y
Jia
Li-ping
LP
Zhang
You
Y
Qian
Yuan
Y
Wu
Ying-hong
YH
Zhang
Zheng
Z
Xie
Ji-yan
JY
Miao
Yi-de
YD
Wei
Lai
L
D000208:Acute Disease; D000368:Aged; D017250:Caliciviridae Infections / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005243:Feces / Q000821:virology; D005759:Gastroenteritis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology*; D006761:Hospitals / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D029322:Norovirus / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction