Study of Clinical Characteristics and Clinical Complications of Norovirus gastroenteritis in Admitted Children to the Hospital

Aim: The current study aimed to detect Norovirus infections based on the use of sensitive and specific Multiplex PCR and to evaluate their clinical symptoms among children.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed among patients with acute gastroenteritis (99 subjects) admitted to Ali Asghar Hospital, Tehran, Iran, between 2014 and 2015. Fecal specimens were examined for Norovirus using Multiplex PCR. Clinical characteristics and severity of diarrhea were provided as a comparison of two groups (norovirus-positive and -negative children) using Chi-squared and independent Samples t-test.

Results: The prevalence of Norovirus infection was determined as 18%, among all samples genotyped, all genogroup was determined as GII and the GI was not identified in any of the samples. The age of non-Norovirus patients (16 months) was found to be significantly higher than that of Norovirus-positive patients (9 months) (P = 0.001). Based on the data presented herein, patients with Norovirus infection were diagnosed with fever in more than 50% of them followed by diarrhea (90%), vomiting (over 80%), and abnormalities (over 80%). however, no clear difference was found as comparison of both groups. The serum potassium level in non-Norovirus patients was found to be increased as compared to Norovirus positive patients (0.011) and the presence of hypoxia (Po2) in patients with Norovirus infection suffering from diarrhea was markedly higher when comparing with non-Norovirus types (P = 0.014). Moreover, MCV levels in Norovirus positive patients were significantly lower as compared to subjects with non-Norovirus diarrhea (p = 0.045).

Conclusions: Our data suggested that this genotyping of Norovirus, due to their higher rate of attack, is likely to cause a severe viral outbreak. The most important result of this study is the change in the level of potassium in patients with heart problems.