A single rotavirus strain causing asymptomatic infections as well as severe gastrointestinal disease has been described in the neonatal nurseries of the Christian Medical College, Vellore. In this study, quantitative real-time RT-PCR was used to determine the association of viral load with the presence of gastrointestinal symptoms in neonates. Viral load was estimated in terms of the crossing p...

Human adenoviruses (HAdV) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in pediatric human stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients. Our previous studies identified the gastrointestinal tract as a site of HAdV persistence, but the role of intestinal virus shedding pre-transplant for the risk of ensuing invasive infection has not been entirely elucidated. Molecular HAdV monitoring of serial stool s...

A major challenge in disease ecology is to understand the role of individual variation of infection load on disease transmission dynamics and how this influences the evolution of resistance or tolerance mechanisms. Such information will improve our capacity to understand, predict, and mitigate pathogen-associated disease in all organisms. In many host-pathogen systems, particularly macroparasit...

Waterfowl and shorebirds are well-recognized natural reservoirs of low-pathogenicity avian influenza viruses (LPAIV); however, little is known about the role of passerines in avian influenza virus ecology. Passerines are abundant, widespread, and commonly come into contact with free-ranging birds as well as captive game birds and poultry. We inoculated and subsequently challenged house sparrows...

In this study, we report a case of multidrug-resistant influenza A(H3N2) virus isolated from an immunosuppressed patient with prolonged viral shedding. We also describe the genetic characterization of the haemagglutinin, neuraminidase and M2 influenza genes. The virus contained the substitutions E119V in neuraminidase and V27A in M2, which produce resistance to oseltamivir and adamantanes, resp...

RSV is the most important viral cause of pneumonia and bronchiolitis in children worldwide and has been associated with significant disease burden. With the renewed interest in RSV vaccines, we provide realistic estimates on duration, and influencing factors on RSV shedding which are required to better understand the impact of vaccination on the virus transmission dynamics. The data arise from ...

BACKGROUND Norovirus infection is the most common cause of acute self-limiting gastroenteritis. Only 3 cases of chronic norovirus infection in adult solid organ transplant recipients have been reported thus far. METHODS This case series describes 9 consecutive kidney allograft recipients with chronic norovirus infection with persistent virus shedding and intermittent diarrhea for a duration o...