First outbreak of norovirus in Albania.

Aims: Noroviruses (NoVs) represent the most important enteric viruses responsible for acute gastroenteritis world-wide. This study objective is to characterize the first outbreak of NoV that occurred in Ballsh, a small city in Albania.

Methods And Results: Stool specimens were collected from people attending to the hospital.

Nucleotide correlation between HAV isolates from human patients and environmental samples.

Hepatitis A disease is endemic in Albania even though records from the Medical Authority show outbreaks involving only limited numbers of people. In the city of Lac, 200 people became ill following an outbreak of hepatitis A started on November 2002. The age distribution of the cases shows a peak in the age group 5-9 (43.

Waterborne gastroenteritis outbreak in Albania.

Three different studies are reported concerning the environmental pollution caused by viruses in Albania. The first study describes an outbreak of gastroenteritis in the capital city, involving 2,722 children attending the Paediatric Unit of Tirana Hospital. The age group with the highest morbidity was 0-5 years, with 89.

Sanitary survey of the drinking water supply of Kombinati suburb-Tirana, Albania.

Microbiological pollution of drinking water is a major health problem in the suburbs of the Albanian capital. Intermittent supply and contamination, resulting in several gastrointestinal manifestations, are the main concerns for the population and health workers. The risk of outbreaks of water-borne diseases is high.

Genomic characterization of human and environmental polioviruses isolated in Albania.

Between April and December 1996, a serious outbreak of poliomyelitis occurred in Albania; almost 140 subjects were involved, and the episode presented an unusually high mortality rate (12%). During the outbreak, water samples from the Lana River in Tirana, Albania, and stool samples from two cases of paralytic poliomyelitis were collected and analyzed for the presence of polioviruses. Six polioviruses were isolated from the environmental and human samples, according to standard methods.