Detection Of Norovirus And Adenovirus Type 40/41 In Diarrhea Among Children Aged 1-60 Months, In Al-Najaf Governorate, Iraq

Noroviruses and Adenoviruses type 40/41 are from the most important etiologic factors in acute gastroenteritis of children. The aim of this study was to detect of norovirus and adenovirus type 40/41 among children with diarrhoea admitted to Al-Najaf governorate, in AL- Zahra teaching hospital for maternity and children, during the period from January, 2013 to December, 2014 including 314 stool samples from children with diarrheal, their age range ( from 1 to 60 months). Stool samples were tested for norovirus and adenovirus antigens using immunochromatographic assay, which showed prevalence of 12% and 9% for norovirus and adenovirus, respectively. According to age groups , the results showed that the majority of infections with norovirus and adenovirus were recorded among children age (13-24) months. The positive cases were highly among infants fed with artificial dry milk (31 cases) compared with infants fed with mother's milk (14 cases). Regarding the clinical features of children with viral diarrheal infections the results showed that all of the cases of both viruses complained of watery or mucosal consistence stool (100%) followed by abdominal pain (94.5%) and (82.1%), vomiting (81%) and (78.5%) , and fever (78.3%) and (71.4%) for norovirus and adenovirus positive children respectively. The present study also revealed that a higher incidence of norovirus was detected from January - March 2014, when it was found in 81% (30/37) of the positive cases , whereas the incidence of adenovirus was higher from January - April 2014, during which it was found in 89.2% (25/28) of the positive cases.