Title: Diagnosis of astrovirus by reverse transcriptase PCR in stools from patients in the UK and Saudi Arabia
Abstract: Astroviruses are becoming increasingly recognised as a cause of diarrhoea in children, and to a lesser extent, adults. Electron microscopy is the recognised standard for diagnosis but is not available in many centres.This study set out to evaluate a RT-PCR method for the diagnosis of astrovirus in faecal specimens.130 diarrhoeal stools were collected prospectively both from Saudi Arabia and Leicester, UK. The patients from each centre were age-matched. Twenty control isolates from food service staff without clinical illness were also collected. Both electron microscopy (EM) and RT-PCR (for astrovirus serotype 1) were used to diagnose astrovirus infection.Of 23 PCR-positive specimens, only 17 were detected by EM. The prevalence of astrovirus serotype 1 was determined by PCR as 1.5% in Saudi Arabia and 4.6% in the UK.RT-PCR is a more sensitive alternative to EM for astrovirus serotype 1.
Publication Year: 1995
Publication Date: 1995-03-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref', 'pubmed']
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 3
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