All issues > Volume 49(11); 2006

Original Article

Korean J Pediatr. 2006;49(11):1186-1193. Published online November 15, 2006.

Cause of enteroviral infection in children in chungnam area summer, 2005

Se Yun SY Jeon¹, Suk Joo SJ Choi¹, Yong Bae YB Kim², Hae Seon HS Nam³, Kwi Sung KS Park⁴, Kyung Ah KA Baek⁴, Joon Soo JS Park⁴

¹Department of Pediatrics College of Medicine, Soonchunhyang University, Cheonan, Korea
²Department of preventive medicine, Soonchunhyang University, Cheonan, Korea
³Department of clinical parasitology, Soonchunhyang University, Cheonan, Korea
⁴Chungcheongnam-Do Health and Environment Research Institute

Correspondence Joon Soo JS Park ,Email: allergist@korea.com

Abstract

Purpose
: Enterovirus infection is a type of viral infection that occurs relatively frequently in children during summer. It has clinical symptoms of non-specific fever, aseptic encephalomeningitis, gastrointestinal diseases, skin rash and, hand-foot-mouth disease. However, it can also occcaisionally, result in fatal symptoms like myocarditis, epicardial inflammation, transverse myelitis, quadriplegia and etc. There have been epidemic enterovirus studies, but not in the Chungnam area. Therefore, we undertook this study in order to comprehend the cause viruses in this area.
Methods
We enlisted 157 children hospitalized with enteroviral infections at Soonchunhyang University hospital in Cheonan between May and August 2005. Cerebrospinal fluids or feces were collected during the acute phase after hospitalization, and observed the cytopathic effects caused by enterovirus and using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).
Results
: The number of children hospitalized due to possible enteroviral infection during the period of study was 157. The number of children who tested positive with the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction totalled 32 cases (20.4 percent). Among the children with entroviral diseases, 20 were male and 12 were female, thus the sex ratio of male to female was 1.67:1. Their clinical symptoms included fever most frequently (93.7 percent), was followed by headaches (90.0 percent), meningeal irritation signs (65.0 percent), and abdominal pain (30.0 percent). As for the type of isolated enterovirus, there were 17 cases of echovirus 18 and 6 cases of coxsackievirus B5. Furthermore, there were 2 cases of echovirus 9, 1 case of coxsackievirus A6 and coxsackievirus B3, respectively. But 5 cases were not determined by genotype.
Conclusion
: Echovirus 18 is circulating in Korea. We reported on identified enteroviruses, including echovirus 18, using RT-PCR in the Chungnam area during the summer of 2005.

Keywords :Enterovirus , Echoviruses , Children , Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction