No abstract

We found a human reovirus-like agent in the stools of 42 per cent of 143 infants and young children hospitalized with acute gastroenteritis between January, 1974, and June, 1975. Half the patients studied by electron microscopy and serologic technics had evidence of infection with the agent. The infection had a seasonal pattern: 59 per cent of those admitted during the cooler months (November to April) shed the agent, with a peak of 78 per cent in December, 1974, and January, 1975, combined. None of the patients admitted during the warmer months (May to October) shed the agent. None of 275 Escherichia coli isolates from 32 patients with diarrhea produced heat-labile enterotoxin, whereas 17 of the 32 had evidence of infection with the reovirus-like agent. In addition, 14 of 40 parents of 37 patients with diarrhea associated with the reovirus-like agent were also infected, but most infectious were inapparent. This agent appears to be the major cause of diarrheal illness in the young during the cooler months.

Reoviruslike particles were visualized by electron microscopy in stool filtrates prepared from stools of infants and young children with severe acute gastroenteritis. Patients who had such particles in their stools and whose paired acute and convalescent serums were tested developed an antibody response to the reoviruslike agent, which was measured by immune electron microscopy and by complement fixation. The reoviruslike agent was antigenically related to the epizootic diarrhea of infant mice virus and the Nebraska calf diarrhea virus.