ABSTRACT
Food and water are the means through which numerous viruses causing gastroenteritis and hepatitis are transmitted. Norwalk virus, a human calicivirus and major cause of epidemic gastroenteritis, and hepatitis A virus (HAV), a picornavirus and well-recognized cause of “infectious” hepatitis, are the most common of these agents. More recently, other viruses, including other strains of human caliciviruses, astroviruses,and rotaviruses, and a unique, non-A, non-B, enterically transmitted hepatitis virus (hepatitis E virus or HEV), have been identified in outbreaks of food- and waterborne illness.
