Coronaviruses cause GI illness

Two types of newly recognized coronavirus were identified in stool samples of patients with gastrointestinal disease, and more than half of those patients also had respiratory symptoms, based on data from more than 400 adults and children.

A total of nine stool samples that tested negative for Clostridium difficile instead tested positive for one of two strains of human coronavirus. The coronavirus strains were HcoV-NL63 and HcoV-HKU1, said, a pediatrician and infectious disease specialist at the Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.

These two coronaviruses have been associated with upper and lower respiratory tract disease in previous studies. He presented the findings at the jointly held annual Interscience Conference on Antimacrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) and the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).

During the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2002-2003, enteric involvement was reported in more than 70 percent of patients during their illnesses, and coronavirus RNA was found in stool samples from SARS patients.

In the current study, examined the association of coronaviruses with gastrointestinal illness in children and adults.

The researchers collected stool samples at a single hospital between Dec. 1, 2007, and March 31, 2008. They examined samples from 328 adults (average age 62 years) and 151 children younger than 18 years (average age 4 years). They extracted nucleic acid from each stool sample and screened for coronavirus using a polymerase chain reaction test.

Nine samples (2.7 percent) screened positive for coronaviruses, including four samples from adults and five from children. Overall, 78 percent of the positive samples were identified as HKU1 and 22 percent were found to be NL63.

Clinical gastrointestinal characteristics in patients with coronavirus-positive stool included gastrointestinal illness, diarrhea, and abdominal pain.

The clinical study is an important step toward understanding the link between respiratory disease and gastrointestinal disease in coronavirus infections.