Norovirus Infection

Alfieri, Amauri Alcindo; Leme, Raquel Arruda; Alfieri, Alice Fernandes

Norovirus (NoV) was first reported as causative agent of gastroenteritis in 1972, when students and staff of an elementary school located in Norwalk, Ohio, USA, presented vomitus and diarrhoea. After this, a number of studies definitively associated the NoV infection with outbreaks of acute gastroenteritis. Nowadays, NoV is considered the leading cause of nonbacterial gastroenteritis outbreaks and severe childhood diarrhoea worldwide, including water- and food-borne outbreaks. In animals, NoV infections have been reported in swine, bovine, ovine, canine, feline, and murine. The pathogenic role of NoV infection and its impact in animal health are not completely clear. Most of the epidemiological studies detected NoV in asymptomatic animal hosts worldwide. However, there are studies that associated the NoV infection with disease, especially enteritis, in swine, bovine, canine, and feline. This chapter presents the NoV properties and describes the pathogenesis, epidemiology, and available techniques for diagnosis of the virus infection. Additionally, the NoV infection management and prophylaxis measures for livestock animal species are approached.