The development of sensitive latex agglutination tests for detecting astroviruses (serotypes 1 and 3) from clinical stool specimen.

: Astrovirus is a small single strand RNA virus, that are associated with pediatric gastroenteritis. In order to detect astrovirus, latex agglutination test (LA) is simpler, more convenient and rapid diagnostic method for detection of viruses in stool specimens than that of electron microscopy (EM) or reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Latex reagents was developed with cultured astroviruses serotypes 1 and 3, and tested on rotaviruses- and adenoviruses-negative stool specimens between 1996 and 1998. Out of the 220 specimens, 23 were positive by both LA of serotype 1 and RT-PCR in 26 positive by RT-PCR. The sensitivity was 88.5%, the specificity was 97.9%. Four were positive by both LA of serotype 3 and RT-PCR. Though seroptype 3 LA needs to be improved, LA for screenings astrovirus is useful in rapidly detecting as a large number of screening test.