Recovery of the Coxsackie Group of Viruses from Human Sources

Abstract

Summary

One hundred eight isolations of the Coxsackie group of viruses have been made from the secretions or tissues of 97 patients from 9 different states with multiple isolations from different kinds of specimens from 6 separate individuals. Virus was recovered a second time from 9 different specimens. The strains obtained may be divided into 4 distinct serological types. Two of them correspond to Types 1 and 2 of Dalldorf; the other 2, tentatively called Types 4 and 5, are antigenically different. The viruses have been recovered from human blood, Serum, brain, cord, mouth or nasopharyngeal washings, saliva, sputum, nasal swabs, mouth vesicles, urine and feces with a predominance of Types 4, 5 and 2, respectively. The highest percentage of isolations was from the blood, 22 out of 25 (88.0%) specimens being positive. The virus was found also in material from 10 fatal cases and could be recovered repeatedly from 5 of the same specimens. It was easily isolated from mouth washings during the first week of illness, and on 3 occasions was obtained again from the same patients during the third week after the onset. The largest number of isolations was from material obtained during August and September, with another large group collected in March. Neutralizing antibodies for Types 1 and 2 were found not only in the sera of patients but in those of a few normal individuals as well. The sera of 7 out of 8 individuals showed neutralizing an tibodies against their homologous viruses. Type 4 virus has been recovered 3 times from muscle filtrates of normal baby mice and there is evidence that the Coxsackie viruses may be disseminated in the laboratory, thus accounting for some of the isolations.