Rotavirus and coronavirus outbreak: etiology of annual diarrhea in Costa Rican children

In Costa Rica, an annual outbreak of infant diarrheal disease (December and January) was reported since 1976, and rotavirus was incriminated 1ater as the main etiological agent (1976-1981). Apparently the disease has not been systematically studied in Costa Rica after 1981. For that reason the occur...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Authors: González, Paulina, Sánches, Abelino, Rivera, Patricia, Jiménez, Carlos, Hemández, Francisco
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:1997
Country:Costa Rica
Institution:Universidad de Costa Rica
Repository:Portal de Revistas UCR
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:portal.ucr.ac.cr:article/21087
Online Access:https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/rbt/article/view/21087
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:diarrhea
diarrheal disease outbreak
rotavirus
coronavirus
Description
Summary:In Costa Rica, an annual outbreak of infant diarrheal disease (December and January) was reported since 1976, and rotavirus was incriminated 1ater as the main etiological agent (1976-1981). Apparently the disease has not been systematically studied in Costa Rica after 1981. For that reason the occurrence of the outbreak was retrospective1y documented for 1993-1995 and etiology was studied in 48 children treated for diarrhea at the Nacional Children Hospital (capital city of San Jose) during December, 1994 and January, 1995. Rotavirus (33%) and coronavirus (27%) were the main agents. To our knowledge, this is the first time that these viruses are incriminated in an outbreak of diarrhea.