Abstract
Acute infectious gastroenteritis is an extremely common illness, second in frequency only to acute respiratory illness among North American families. Although it had long been suspected that such illnesses were caused by viruses, it was only after clinical and laboratory studies were carried out over the past three decades that causative viruses were identified.1,2 Among the most prominent are a novel group of viruses originally referred to as Norwalk-like agents — named after Norwalk, Ohio, where an outbreak of illness was caused by the prototype agent — and now called noroviruses.Noroviruses are small (26 to 35 nm), single-stranded . . .