Molecular epidemiology of a coxsackievirus B3 outbreak

An outbreak of coxsackievirus B3 infection occurred in South Africa in 1984 with a variety of clinical manifestations being observed. Fifty-one isolates from patients ranging in age from young babies to middle-aged adults were obtained. To define further the epidemiology of this outbreak all isolates were characterised by either 1- or 2-dimensional oligonucleotide mapping. One-dimensional mapping was found to be highly successful for initial screening of the isolates before further characterisation by 2-dimensional fingerprinting. All isolates were found to be essentially the same strain of coxsackievirus B3 although slight variations in both the 1- and 2-dimensional patterns could be observed. Some coxsackievirus B3 strains from geographically unrelated regions but isolated during the same time period as the outbreak showed clearly distinguishable oligonucleotide maps.