Occurrence of reo-like calf viruses in young children with acute gastroenteritis. Diagnoses established by electron microscopy and complement fixation, using the reo-like virus as antigen

Abstract

In the course of a six-month-study of acute gastroenteritis in children of ages up to six years, a reo-like virus was found in 54 per cent of the faecal specimens obtained at an early stage of the disease, using electron microscopy as screening test. By means of a concentrated complement fixation antigen, composed of a related calf diarrhoea virus cultivated in tissue culture, the rise in titre was found to be significant in 96 per cent of the patients whose faeces contained the reo-like virus. Antibodies were present in the remaining 4 per cent without rise in titre. In 10 per cent of the cases with gastroenteritis infection was caused by adenovirus or Salmonella. A probable aetiological agent was found in 71 per cent of the patients. It applies to 33 per cent of all cases caused by the reo-like virus that they were nosocomial infections.