Clinical analysis on an outbreak of SRSV-gastroenteritis with 644 patients emerged in Shizuoka Prefecture

Abstract

Small round structured viruses (SRSV) are the major cause of acute non-bacterial enterogastritis and have a characteristic of breaking out with mass victims as food poisoning. The outbreak usually occurs among school children from school lunches in Japan. A case in adults is relatively rare. The SRSV food poisoning with 644 adult victims carried through lunch box broke out, which may be the biggest number in adult cases in the world. This is the report describing its outlines, analytical result of clinical symptoms and fecal microbial examination. The average latent period was 37 hours, the time was mostly (47%) between 24-36 hours. The most emerged symptom was diarrhea and followed nausea, abdominal pain, vomiting and high fever. The older patients showed a higher rate of diarrhea and fewer one of nausea and fever. 15 patients complained of eye symptom. This number should not be neglected. It may be a characteristic of the disease. SRSV detection test with PT-PCR method of feces was done on 36 patients and 24 patients were positive. The most sensitive primer was Yuri/nested/22F/R. In Japan, lunch-service has become a industry advancing monopolization and wide areazation. SRSV make easily contamination to food, therefore if mass victim food-poisoning occurs, this should be considered initially.