Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 July 2004
In July 2001, an outbreak of gastroenteritis occurred in Helsinki among children and adults after bathing in an outdoor wading pool. The epidemiological survey revealed that at least 242 persons were affected. Microbiological testing of both patient stool samples and of the pool water revealed the presence of two different gastroenteritis viruses: a norovirus (NV) and an astrovirus. Amplicon sequencing of the NV samples showed nucleotide sequence identity between the virus from patients and the water. After changing the pool water and the sand at the bottom of the pool followed by shock chlorination, no virus could be detected in the water. However, NV was continuously detected in the water outlet well as much as 8 months after the incident. Here we show how molecular methods aided in tracing the source of the epidemic and in finding the causative pathogens both in patients and in the environment.
To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.