چکیده (انگلیسی):

Gastroenteritis is one of the most common diseases during childhood, with norovirus (NoV)and sapovirus (SaV) being two of its main causes. This study reports for the first time theincidence of these viruses in hospitalized children with and without gastroenteritis in SãoLuís, Maranhão. A total of 136 fecal samples were tested by enzyme immunoassays (EIA) forthe detection of NoV and by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) fordetection of both NoV and SaV. Positive samples for both agents were subjected to sequenc-ing. The overall frequency of NoV as detected by EIA and RT-PCR was 17.6% (24/136) and32.6% (15/46), respectively in diarrheic patients and 10.0% (9/90) in non-diarrheic patients(p < 0.01). Of the diarrheic patients, 17% had fever, vomiting and anorexia, and 13% devel-oped fever, vomiting and abdominal pain. Of the 24 NoV-positive samples, 50% (12/24) weresequenced and classified as genotypes GII.3 (n = 1), GII.4 (6), GII.5 (1), GII.7 (2), GII.12 (1)and GII.16 (1). SaV frequency was 9.8% (11/112), with 22.6% (7/31) in diarrheic patients and4.9% (4/81) in nondiarrheic (p = 0.04) ones. In diarrheic cases, 27.3% had fever, vomiting andanorexia, whereas 18.2% had fever, anorexia and abdominal pain. One SaV-positive samplewas sequenced and classified as GII.1. These results show a high genetic diversity of NoVand higher prevalence of NoV compared to SaV. Our data highlight the importance of NoVand SaV as enteropathogens in São Luís, Maranhão.© 2016 Sociedade Brasileira de Microbiologia. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. This isan open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).