Astroviruses that infect humans have been poorly studied due to the fact that they do not grow in culture. Astroviruses belong to the family Astroviridae along with a virus know as mamastrovirus. They were first described in the year 1975 using electron microscopes during an outbreak of diarrhoea. Astrovirus has a non-segmented, single stranded, positive sense RNA genome within a non-enveloped icosahedral capsid. In 1995 it was shown that astrovirus was the main viral cause of infectious intestinal disease in England (Roderick et al., 1995).

References

Roderick P, Wheeler J, Cowden J, Sockett P, Skinner R, Mortimer P, Rowe B, Rodriques L. 1995. A pilot study of infectious intestinal disease in England. Epidemiol. Infect. 114:277-88

Viruses