RESUMO
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.
