EPIDEMIC OUTBREAKS OF ADENOVIRUS 7 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE PATHOGENICITY OF ADENOVIRUS GENOME TYPE 7b

Abstract

Adenovirus type 7 (Ad 7) is the serotype among the 36 recognized adenovirus types which most frequently has been associated with severe illness. Three different epidemic patterns of Ad 7 infection can be distinguished: 1) the first appears during the winter among infants with median age below two years, has characteristic symptoms of high fever and pneumonia and an outcome that may be fatal: 2) the second appears in the fall among children with median age seven years, has characteristic symptoms of high fever, pneumonia, abdominal symptoms and meningism and an outcome that is favorable; 3) and the third has been seen as acute respiratory disease among military recruits. In the United States, the last mentioned outbreaks require prophylaxis in the form of a live enteric-coated vaccine. DNA restriction site mapping demonstrated the occurrence of three distinct viral entities of Ad 7, which have been designated Ad 7 prototype, Ad 7a (the vaccine strain) and the Ad 7b genome type. In the present study, 36 isolates obtained from outbreaks with the first and the second epidemic patterns were analyzed by restriction endonucleases Bam HI and Sma I. All were identified as the newly recognized Ad 7b genome type. It is concluded that this genome type is responsible for a large portion of the severe infections caused by Ad 7. The epidemic nature of Ad 7 and the severe illness noted among infants indicate that vaccination of institutionalized infants could be considered during years when Ad 7 epidemics appear.

A Proposal for Naming Adenovirus Genome Types, Exemplified by Adenovirus Type 6

“…Yet, if the variants are assumed to arise by an evolutionary process, the chronological order is more appropriate than any other. Although no epidemiological or clinical significance of the genome types is apparent for AV of subgenus C (unpublished results), this may be different for AV7 and AV3 (Wadell et al, 1980b;Wadell, 1984). The chronological order from AV7 to 7a, 7b etc., to be expressed by the new naming system, will be meaningful.…”

“…AV7a, 7b etc. ; Wadell et al, 1980b) and may still be used for some time. Moreover, numbers rather than letters appear to be more suitable for computer storage.…”

African Swine Fever Virus DNA: Restriction Endonuclease Cleavage Patterns of Wild-type, Vero Cell-adapted and Plaque-purified Virus

“…African swine fever virus DNA is ideally suited to restriction endonuclease analysis because of the large genome size and, therefore, the availability of numerous cleavage sites for endonuclease digestion. This type of analysis has proved to be a sensitive and reliable way to distinguish isolates of herpesvirus (Buchman et al, 1980) and adenovirus (Wadell et al, 1980).…”

Quantitative Real-Time PCR Assay Panel for Detection and Type-Specific Identification of Epidemic Respiratory Human Adenoviruses

“…Species B (primarily types 3, 7, 11, 14, and 21) and the sole species E (type 4) viruses have been associated with epidemics of often severe ARIs affecting children and adults. Community HAdV ARI clusters, as recently occurred with the emergence of HAdV strain 14p1 in the United States and Europe (10,11,12), including discrete institutional outbreaks among civilians (13), outbreaks covering wide geographic areas (6,14,15,16), and continuous outbreaks among unvaccinated military personnel undergoing basic training (17,18,19), have been reported.…”