The molecular epidemiology characteristics of norovirus in environment and clinical samples in Guangzhou from 2009 to 2011 / 中华预防医学杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the molecular epidemiological characteristics of norovirus in Guangzhou from 2009 to 2011.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A total of 183 water samples, 1162 seafood samples and 1066 diarrhea stool specimens were collected from January 2010 to May 2011, June 2009 to June 2011 and July 2009 to December 2010 respectively in Guangzhou. Norovirus was detected by real time reverse transcript-PCR (qRT-PCR). The partial polymerase gene was amplified from norovirus positive samples, then sequenced and compared with the sequences of norovirus in GenBank. The phylogenetic tree was created.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The positive rate was 19.67% (36/183), 8.26% (96/1162) and 37.05% (395/1066) in water samples, seafood and diarrhea patients respectively. Noroviruses from positive samples could be divided into 10 representative strains, in which 7 representative strains of genotype of 208 samples was type G2-4. The sequences from water, seafood and stool specimens were highly homologous with the similarity of 94% - 100%.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>In Guangzhou, the predominant Norovirus genotype was G2-4 and the positive rate of samples was high.</p>