Marshall J A, Hellard M E, Sinclair M I, Fairley C K, Cox B J, Catton M G, Kelly H, Wright P J
Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, Locked Bag 815, Carlton South, Victoria 3053, Australia.
Public Health. 2004 Apr;118(3):230-3. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2003.09.007.
Noroviruses are a major cause of both sporadic and epidemic gastroenteritis in humans, but the mechanisms by which norovirus circulates within the community are poorly understood. In this study, we examined the hypothesis that asymptomatic people act as a reservoir for norovirus. Faecal specimens from 399 asymptomatic individuals were tested for norovirus by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) methodology, and no norovirus was detected. The failure to detect norovirus was not apparently due to the test sample being resistant to norovirus infection, nor to the presence of PCR inhibitors in the test sample. The findings suggest that, if norovirus is carried by asymptomatic people, the carriage rate is very low; the upper bound (95% confidence interval, binomial distribution) of the carriage rate was only 0.8%. Thus, it is unlikely that asymptomatic people are an important reservoir for norovirus.
诺如病毒是人类散发性和流行性肠胃炎的主要病因，但人们对诺如病毒在社区内传播的机制了解甚少。在本研究中，我们检验了无症状人群作为诺如病毒宿主的假说。采用逆转录聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）方法对399名无症状个体的粪便样本进行诺如病毒检测，未检测到诺如病毒。未检测到诺如病毒显然不是因为检测样本对诺如病毒感染具有抗性，也不是因为检测样本中存在PCR抑制剂。研究结果表明，如果无症状人群携带诺如病毒，其携带率非常低；携带率的上限（95%置信区间，二项分布）仅为0.8%。因此，无症状人群不太可能是诺如病毒的重要宿主。
