Diarrhea can be caused by a variety of bacterial, viral and parasitic organisms. Laboratory diagnosis is essential in the pathogen-specific burden assessment. In the pathogen spectrum monitoring in the diarrheal surveillance, culture methods are commonly used for the bacterial pathogens' detection whereas nucleic acid based amplification, the non-cultural methods are used for the viral pathogen...

The human caliciviruses (HuCVs) are important causes of gastroenteritis worldwide. Norovirus (NoV) and sapovirus (SaV) have been detected in HIV-seropositive children but the genetic diversity of HuCVs circulating in these individuals is largely unknown. In this study the prevalence and genotype diversity of HuCVs circulating in Kenyan HIV-positive children, with or without diarrhea, from the y...

Norovirus (NoV), sapovirus (SaV) and human astrovirus (HAstV) are viral pathogens that are associated with outbreaks and sporadic cases of gastroenteritis. However, little is known about the occurrence of these pathogens in relatively isolated communities, such as the remnants of African-descendant villages ("Quilombola"). The objective of this study was the frequency determination of these vir...

Two recently commercialized enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits, the SRSV(II)-AD (Denka Seiken Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) and IDEIA NLV (DakoCytomation Ltd., Ely, United Kingdom) kits, that detect human norovirus (HuNV) antigens in stool samples were evaluated to assess whether they could be used instead of reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) for routine diagnosis. The sensitivities and specific...