Gastroenteritis Outbreak Caused by Noroviruses in Pardis City in 2014

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Acute gastroenteritis is mainly caused by some viruses and often NoVs. In January 2014, an outbreak of gastroenteritis occurred in Pardis City, in Tehran and that made 5064 patients visit health centers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the epidemiology of the disease in this region. Methods: This cross sectional study was done to evaluate the outbreak of gastroenteritis in Pardis City in January 2014. In this outbreak, the data of 1150 out of 5064 patient was collected by health centers. The inclusion criterion was residing in the location for at least ten days before its occurrence. The exclusion criterion was incomplete recorded data. A number of 126 human samples underwent laboratory investigation. The data collection tool was was line listings and data analysis was done with Excel 2010 and SPSS21 software. Results: female and male patients comprised 57.8 and 42.2% of the study population and 59.7% of the subjects were under 27 years of age. The most prominent symptoms were vomiting (94.9%), diarrhea (37.7%), abdominal pain (18.8%), and fever (0.6%). The results showed that bacterial contamination, parasites, serologic tests for hepatitis E (IgM-HEV) and hepatitis A (IgM-HAV) and RT-PCR for hepatitis E and A were negative but 6 out of 9 fecal samples were positive for NoVs using molecular RT-PCR. Conclusion: The results revealed the role of NoVs in Pardis City in 2014. Moreover, clinical and epidemiological characteristics of the population, season, and the environment of this diagnosis were confirmed.

Keywords

• norovirus
• gastroenteritis
• outbreak