THE SEASONAL INCREASE OF ENTEROVIRAL INFECTION INCIDENCE IN THE NOVGOROD OBLAST

The analysis of epidemic process and definition of the etiology of the seasonal increase of serosal meningitis incidence in the Novgorod oblast in September-November, 2008 has been carried out. It was shown that in the specified period 73 persons had enteroviral meningitis. The proportion of children under 17 years old in the group of patients was 89.9%. The etiological agents of disease (enteroviruses ECHO 6 и ECHO 30) were detected by the virological and molecular-biological methods. It was established that two genetic variants of ECHO 6 and one variant of ECHO 30 co-circulated in the Novgorod oblast. The last virus variant was closely related to the strain isolated from enteroviral meningitis patients in Nizhniy Novgorod in 2007. The obtained data support the idea about necessity of systematic epidemiological and virological surveillance on enteroviral infection to get new information about circulation of non-poliomyelitis enteroviruses in the population and to define peculiarities of epidemic process development.