Acute haemorrhagic conjunctivitis and enterovirus 70 in Kenya

The pandemic of acute haemorrhagic conjunctivitis that started in Ghana in 1969 and spread to many countries in Africa, Asia and Europe reached Kenya in April 1971. From one patient virus was isolated. This was possibly the first strain ever isolated of Enterovirus 70. Identification took time and was finished long after the publication of isolation of the new virus in Japan. Cross neutralization tests with the virus from Japan showed close relationship between the two. During a second epidemic in Kenya in 1974 many more strains of the virus were isolated. The history of isolation and identification and the clinical picture of the disease as seen in Kenya are described.