A Study of Norovirus Molecular Epidemiology: impact, prevalence, diversity and genetic adaptation

Halfway into the past century molecular biology emerged as a science, and it has evolved and grown very rapidly since. As a result of their very nature, infectious diseases have always had the attention of physicians and scientists, and the possibilities for research offered by molecular biology were pre-eminently suitable for studying the causative agents of these infectious diseases, and especially for studying viruses. Noroviruses cause sudden onset gastro-intestinal illness in humans. Their ability to cause large scale outbreaks of debilitating illness, even if of quickly passing nature, has made them into a relevant topic of study. Rapid developments in molecular biology have generated diagnostic tools which enabled many labs in the world to perform norovirus diagnostics, and to perform sequence analyses of the detected strains. These sequence data form a very valuable basis for studies of the molecular epidemiology of noroviruses. By linking the sequence data to classical epidemiological data, such as time and place of illness, number of people affected, etc., a platform is made for unveiling information describing for example the spread of the virus, the impact, and the prevalence. The work presented in this thesis aims to further current knowledge of norovirus by studying its molecular epidemiology, to better enable taking public health actions aimed at decreasing the impact of disease.

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