Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

Resources

Make a Gift

Make this my homepage
Print this page
Email to a friend
Link to us

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

Update your faculty page

Submit ideas
Corrections
Feedback
Contact us
Site map

August 2006

Literature Review

Noroviruses as a Cause of Traveler’s Diarrhea among Students from the United States Visiting Mexico
Go to full text in PubMed: Ko G, Garcia C, Jiang ZD, et al. J Clin Microbiol 2005;43:6126

The authors investigated the cause of “Traveler’s diarrhea” among 124 international travelers with acute diarrhea when visiting Guadalajara, Mexico during the summer of 2004.  The following is a summary of the etiologic agents identified:

Total Sampled119-124
Enterotoxigenic E. coli54 (45%)
Norovirus21 (17%)
Enteroadherent E. coli18 (15%)
Providencia9 (8%)
Cryptosporidia5 (4%)
Shigella4 (3%)
Aeromonas1 (1%)
Plesiomonas 1 (1%)
None identified399 (31%)

The authors conclude that Norovirus is a “under-appreciated cause of traveler’s diarrhea”. 

Comment: Norovirus seems to be found everywhere: the more you look, the more you find. This is in large part due to improved techniques (PCR) for detection. It is not surprising that this was an important agent in traveler’s diarrhea, but has simply not been sought in most of the prior studies. 

Literature Review by John G. Barlett, M.D. Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases

Return to Literature Review main page

© 2009, Johns Hopkins University. All rights reserved.
Web policies, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205