Annals of Clinical Microbiology, The official Journal of the Korean Society of Clinical Microbiology

6

Weeks in Review

4

Weeks to Publication
Indexed in KCI, KoreaMed, Synapse, DOAJ
Open Access, Peer Reviewed
pISSN 2288-0585 eISSN 2288-6850
Original article

Coxsackievirus A16 Isolated from Patients with Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease in Cheju Province in the Spring of 1998

Eui-Chong Kim*1,2, Jung-Hee Lee2, Hyun-Jin Jung1, and Young-Joon Lee1

Department of Clinical Pathology, Seoul National University College of Medicine1; Clinical Research Institute, Seoul National University Hospital2, Seoul, Korea

Corresponding to Eui-Chong Kim, E-mail: euichong@plaza.snu.ac.kr

Ann Clin Microbiol 1999;2(2):172-176.
Copyright © Korean Society of Clinical Microbiology.

Abstract

Background: Hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) is mainly caused by the infection of coxsackievirus A16. But recently several epidemics of HFMD with meningitis or myocarditis due to enterovirus 71 have been reported in Southeast Asia. It was necessary that the possibility of enterovirus 71 epidemic in Korea should be ruled out. This study was designed for the determination of causative agents of HFMD in Cheju province in the spring of 1998.

Methods: Serum specimens were collected from 45 pediatric patients with HFMD at Cheju Hankook Hospital in March and April, 1998. Virus isolation was performed with RD cell culture through up to three passages. Reverse transcription-PCR and nucleotide sequencing were performed by the method of Oberste et al. (J Clin Microbiol 1999;37:1288-93). The serotypes of viral isolates were determined by BLAST program of National Center for Biotechnology Information, U. S. A.

Results: Virus could be isolates from 4 patients, whose age was ranged from 11 months to 3 years. All of 4 viral isolates showed about 430-bp product of RT-PCR using primers 011 and 012. The serotype showing the highest similarity with the nucleotide sequences of all of these viral isolates was coxsackievirus A16.

Conclusions: The causative enteroviral agent of HFMD in Cheju province in the spring of 1998 was coxsackievirus A16. We could not detect enterovirus 71 from the patients’ sera in Cheju Province in the spring of 1998. (Korean J Clin Microbiol 1999;2:172-176)

Keywords

Hand-foot-mouth disease, Coxsackievirus A16, Polymerase chain reaction