Elimination of some enteroviruses in the excrements of experimentally infected rats (Rattus norvegicus) and gulls (Larus ridibundus).

Young rats of both sexes, weight 150-170 g, the first laboratory progeny of captured wild parent pairs, were used throughout this experiment. Rats in two experimental groups comprising a total of 34 animals were infected orally with type 2 poliovirus vaccine strain given in each group at doses of 500, 5000 or 50,000 TCD50. In the first experiment, the presence of poliovirus in rat excrements was detectable irregularly till day 13, in the second experiment till day 2 after infection. Small quantities of virus were also detectable from the colon and cecum wall, exceptionally from the mesenteric lymph node. The third experiment included 8 rats orally infected with 5,000 TCD50 of echovirus 30; at the lower dose of virus all excrement samples were culture-negative, at the higher dose the positive virus recovery was recorded in 3 animals one day after infection. Analogous experiments in the fifth group of rats orally infected with 5,000 TCD50 or 50,000 TCD50 of enterovirus 71 yielded much the same results; organs of further 6 animals infected intranasally with 5,000 TCD50 of this virus were culture-negative and no virus-related changes could be histologically demonstrated in these animals. The second part of this study included the experiments conducted on 17 young Larus gulls bred in the laboratory from eggs collected in a colony of free living birds. Groups of these gulls were orally infected with 500 or 5,000 TCD50 of one of the following viruses: type 1 poliovirus vaccine strain, type 3 poliovirus vaccine strain, echovirus 30, enterovirus 71 and coxsackievirus B4. All samples of gull excrements collected till day 7 or 20 postinfection were culture-negative. These results suggest that wild rats may play some role in the spread of human enteroviruses in the environment, but no such role could be demonstrated in the Larus gull.