1National Institute of Virology, 20-A, Dr. Ambedkar Road, Pune-411001, Maharashtra
2Minto Eye Hospital, Victoria, Bangalore-2, Karnataka
3National Institute of Ophthalmology, Pune-411005
4Grant Medical College and J.J. group of Hospitals, Mumbai-400008
5Indira Gandhi Government Medical College, Nagpur-440018, India.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the International Conference of Indian Virological Society on “Emerging and Re-emerging viral Diseases of the Tropics and Subtropics” at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India, December 11–14, 2007.
Acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis (AHC) is a highly contagious viral disease. Enterovirus (EV) -70 and a variant of Coxsackie A-24 (CA-24v) viruses are known to cause AHC outbreaks worldwide. Outbreaks of conjunctivitis occurred in 2006–2007 in India. We investigated the viral etiological agents associated with these outbreaks. Conjunctival swabs were collected from patients in Pune (n=30) in 2006 and from Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur (n=37) and Bangalore (n=25) in 2007. Virus isolation was carried out in HeLa cells for specimens from Pune outbreak-2006.Thirteen specimens showed CPE. Using primers from 5’NCR of EV and Hexon region of Adenoviruses, PCR was carried out to detect EV RNA and Adenovirus DNA in eye swabs and culture isolates. All culture isolates and seven eye swabs of Pune outbreak-2006 showed presence of EV RNA. Out of sixty eye swabs tested during 2007 outbreak, five each from Pune and Mumbai, two from Nagpur and nine from Bangalore were found positive for EV-RNA. None of the samples were found positive for EV-70 or Adenovirus. Sequencing of PCR products showed 98–99% nucleotide identity with reference strain of DSO, CA-24v isolate reported from Singapore. These data revealed that CA-24v was the viral etiological agent associated with outbreaks of AHC in 2006–2007 in Maharashtra and Karnataka states of India.
