Epidemic Keratoconjunctivitis at a Vietnamese Refugee Camp in Florida

Abstract

During the summer of 1975 an ongoing outbreak of conjunctivitis occurred among Vietnamese refugees temporarily housed at a U.S. mainland camp. Twenty-two per cent of surveyed refugees gave a history of the disease and 10% were documented as having clinical conjunctivitis at the time of the survey. Fifty-six per cent of documented cases were in children less than 10 years of age. The attack rate among American camp personnel was 4%. Comprehensive microbiologic analysis revealed multiple potential pathogens in most cases, but the recovery of adenovirus 8 (AV8) in 81% of cases cultured within two weeks of onset implicated AV8 as the principal cause of the epidemic.

Three adenovirus type 8 genome types defined by restriction enzyme analysis: prototype stability in geographically separated populations

“…In this report, we have used serologic and restriction enzyme analyses to study Ad8 strains isolated over 19 years. Some viruses were obtained from sporadic EKC cases, but most were isolated from several large outbreaks that occurred in the United States (5,8,17,30,35,38), including one major outbreak in a Vietnamese refugee camp in Florida (52).…”

Methods for Rapid Detection of Human Ocular Viral Infections

“…Another re-port16 described difficulties encountered in typing adenovirus related to types 10 to 19 in an outbreak of keratoconjunctivitis in Bristol. The same problem was encountered in this study, since the hybrid type [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] showed characteristics of type 10 determined by neutralization and of type 19 by hemagglutination inhibition.…”

Environmental health in forced displacement: A systematic scoping review of the emergency phase

“…Nasir Khisro and Rahman (2010) conclude that poor hygiene practices were due to a lack of resources in their study population. Similarly, three publications (3%) report insufficient handwashing facilities (Giardina et al 2016;CDC 2005;Zweighaft et al 1977). In lieu of formal handwashing facilities, handwashing bags (HWB) were provided in refugee camps in Ethiopia.…”

“…Crowded displacement settlements often have a scarcity of personal items, such as towels and clothing. As a result, displaced people commonly share these items, facilitating the transmission of pathogens on fomites (Zweighaft et al 1977;Kim et al 2007). Two publications report that displaced people did not have more than one set of culturally and climate appropriate clothing per person (the Sphere Standard) (Greco et al 1993;Lim et al 2005).…”

“…Less commonly reported environment-related health outcomes include typhoid (Bollag 1979;Nasir Khisro and Rahman 2010), leptospirosis (Campanella 1999;McGready et al 2010), dengue McGready et al 2010), adenovirus (Mohamed et al 2014;Zweighaft et al 1977),…”