[The geographical spread of enterovirus uveitis in the USSR]. / Geograficheskoe rasprostranenie énteroviusnogo uveita v SSSR.

Enteroviral uveitis is accompanied by intensive and long-term production of specific neutralizing antibodies. The antibody titer to the causative virus ECHO 19/K (Siberia, Krasnoyarsk, 1980-1981) was 1:1000-1:65,000 in 80% of children 5 to 6 1/2 years after the illness. In retrospective examinations of blood sera from children with the history of uveitis using a neutralization test with ophthalmotropic strains of ECHO 19 and ECHO 11 viruses, the ECHO-virus etiology of this disease was first established in 80 patients living in the European part of the country (Moscow, Leningrad, Volgograd, Krasnodar, Donetsk, etc) and in the Caucasus (Yerevan, Tbilisi, Baku). The epidemic process in uveitis is associated with the emergence and alternation of antigenic ECHO virus variants. Both in the Asian and European USSR the causative agent of uveitis in 1979-1983 was ECHO 19/K, in 1980-1987 ECHO 11/A, and in 1986-1989 ECHO 11/B virus. In 1979-1989, altogether over 800 cases of uveitis in children caused by ophthalmotropic variants of ECHO 19 and ECHO 11 viruses were detected in the Soviet Union.

[Outbreak of enteroviral uveitis in children in Omsk in 1987-1988]. / Vspyshka énterovirusnogo uveita u detei v Omske v 1987-1988 gg.

From May, 1987, to July, 1988, 56 cases of acute enterovirus infection complicated by uveitis were reported in Omsk, Western Siberia, USSR. Infants aged from 15 days to 19 months were involved. The infection was nosocomial, the peak of the incidence occurring in January 1988. Severe and moderately severe cases of uveitis (43 out of 56 infants) were prevalent running a course with destruction of the iris, formation of posterior synechias, deformation of the ciliary body, lenticular opacity, appearance of prelental films, retardation of the development of the affected eye, hemorrhages in the fundus of the eye. The causative agent of uveitis outbreak was ECHO-11 virus: 40 strains of ECHO-11 virus were isolated from 27 out of 33 examined infants with uveitis; in 32 out of 33 infants a high titre of antibodies (1:256-1:16384) to the endemic ECHO-11 virus was demonstrated. Uveitis was reproduced in monkeys infected with Omsk strains of ECHO-11 virus. The uveitis outbreak in Omsk is similar in its etiology, epidemiology, and clinical pattern to three previous outbreaks of enterovirus uveitis observed in Krasnoyarsk (central Siberia) observed in 1980-1986.