EACH YEAR in the United States, an estimated 30 million nonpolio enterovirus infections cause aseptic meningitis; hand-foot-and-mouth disease; and nonspecific upper-respiratory disease.1 From January 1993 through December 1996, state public health laboratories reported to CDC virus isolation results for 3209 specimens tested for nonpolio enteroviruses. The number of states reporting enterovirus isolations decreased from 25 in 1993 to 14 in 1996. This report summarizes surveillance data for nonpolio enteroviruses and describes temporal trends in nonpolio enterovirus infections during 1993-1996.
During 1993-1996, of the 3209 nonpolio enterovirus isolations reported, echovirus 9 was the predominant serotype reported (12.7%), followed by coxsackievirus B5 (11.5%), echovirus 30 (9.5%), coxsackievirus A9 (6.6%), coxsackievirus B2 (6.2%), echovirus 6 (5.1%), and echovirus 11 (4.5%). None of the 67 known enterovirus serotypes was listed in 3.8% of the reports. Isolates were most frequently obtained from cerebrospinal fluid (25.3%), nasopharyngeal swab (17.6%)