Acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis epidemic caused by coxsackievirus A24 variants in Korea during 2002–2003

Abstract

A variant of coxsackievirus A24 (CA24v) is one of the agents causing acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis. There was an epidemic of acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis caused by CA24v in Korea from 2002 to 2003. Seventy‐one strains of CA24v were isolated from 159 conjunctival specimens (45%). Most of the patients were school children under the age of 20. The epidemic began in the first week of August in 2002, and spread extensively, with a peak in the third week of September. CA24v strains were also isolated from conjunctival specimens in 2003. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) was performed and sequencing of the 340 bp fragment of the VP1 region of the viruses. Sequencing data were multiple‐aligned using CLUSTAL W (version 1.81). Phylogenetic trees were plotted using TreeView (version 1.6.6). Homologies ranged from 97.7%–100%, depending on geographical regions: from 99.4%–100% in 2002 and 98.4%–100% in 2003. A phylogenetic tree based on the nucleotide sequence homologies formed clusters depending on years rather than on geographical regions. Identities (98%–100%) were found among the Korean CA24v strains, and there was 85%–90% homology between these and the prototype strain. J. Med. Virol. 78:91–97, 2006. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, inc.

Molecular characterization of a coxsackievirus A24 variant that caused an outbreak of acute haemorrhagic conjunctivitis in Spain, 2004

“…Therefore, phylogenetic analysis of this region of the sequences from the Spanish and other CV-A24 strains isolated from recent outbreaks of AHC in Korea (2002Korea ( , 2003Korea ( and 2006, China (2002), Tunisia (2003), French Guiana and West Indies (2003), and Singapore (2005), [10][11][12]15 shows all CV-A24 strains from AHC to be phylogenetically close (Fig. 1b).…”

“…8 In recent years, several published reports with molecular studies of outbreaks caused by CV-A24v occurred in Korea (2002) [10][11][12][13][14][15] The phylogenetic analyses published revealed that all these strains were closely related and formed a separate cluster within genotype III.…”

Molecular epidemiology of coxsackie A type 24 variant in Taiwan, 2000–2007

“…23 For the 3C pro region, 30 Taiwanese strains were analyzed together with 130 worldwide reference strains in GenBank, including 31 from our previous reports, 23 from China, 16 from South Korea, 17 from Japan, 10 from Singapore (including the EH24 prototype strain), 6 from Guadeloupe, 10 from Morocco, 9 from Congo, 3 from Ghana, 3 from Guiana and 1 each from India, Pakistan and Thailand. 3,4,6,10,11,14,24,25 For VP1 region, 14 Taiwanese strains, 1 Hong Kong strain and 105 worldwide strains were analyzed. The 105 worldwide strains included strains from South Korea (32 strains), Singapore (6, including EH24/70), China (5), Pakistan (5), Algeria (6), Tunisia (8), Spain (10), Sweden (1), Guiana (7), Guadeloupe (4) and USA (1).…”

“…Recently, coxsackievirus A24 variant (CA24v) has been implicated as a major causative agent of AHC outbreaks in many countries. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] In Taiwan, AHC caused by CA24v was characterized by the highest incidence of subconjunctivital hemorrhages (SCHs) among three major aetiological agents of AHC, the other two being Enterovirus 70 (EV70) and adenovirus. 9 Therefore, the reemergence of CA24v is a major public health problem, particularly in heavily populated areas.…”

Sialic Acid Is a Cellular Receptor for Coxsackievirus A24 Variant, an Emerging Virus with Pandemic Potential

“…It continued with an outbreak in Malaysia the same year (18). In 2003, outbreaks of AHC were reported from South Korea (46), India (19), Nepal (25), Tunisia (60), and Congo (29), and in the western hemisphere from Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Caribbean countries (45), French Guiana and the West Indies (15), Puerto Rico (2), and Brazil (38). In 2004, more outbreaks hit both the western (58) and eastern (29) hemispheres.…”