Volume 14, Number
10–October 2008
Research
Norwalk Virus Shedding after
Experimental Human Infection
Robert L. Atmar,  Antone R. Opekun, Mark A. Gilger, Mary K. Estes, Sue E. Crawford, Frederick H.
Neill, and David Y. Graham
Author affiliation: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA
Source of Article: http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/14/10/1553.htm
Abstract
Noroviruses are the most common cause of viral
gastroenteritis in the United
States. To determine the magnitude and
duration of virus shedding in feces, we evaluated persons who had been
experimentally infected with Norwalk
virus. Of 16 persons, clinical gastroenteritis (watery diarrhea and/or
vomiting) developed in 11; symptomatic illness lasted 1–2 days. Virus
shedding was first detected by reverse transcription–PCR (RT-PCR) 18 hours
after participant inoculation and lasted a median of 28 days after
inoculation (range 13–56 days). The median peak amount of virus shedding was
95 × 109 (range 0.5–1,640 ×109) genomic copies/g feces
as measured by quantitative RT-PCR. Virus shedding was first detected by
antigen ELISA ≈33 hours (median 42 hours) after inoculation and lasted
10 days (median 7 days) after inoculation. Understanding of the relevance of
prolonged fecal norovirus excretion must await the
development of sensitive methods to measure virus infectivity.
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