Coxsackie A7 Virus and the Russian "Poliovirus Type 4"

Abstract

The Russian "poliovirus type 4" was studied and demonstrated to be identical with Coxsackie A7 virus. The findings of the Russian investigators were confirmed concerning its properties, including its ability to cause poliomyelitis-like lesions in the central nervous system (CNS) of monkeys. This virus was adapted with some difficulty to growth in monkey kidney tissue culture. Two Coxsackie A7 virus isolates from stools of U.S. children suffering with "nonparalytic" poliomyelitis had the same properties as far as their pathogenicity for the CNS of monkeys as those shown by the Russian strain. It was concluded that it is quite possible that A7 Coxsackie virus may cause both "paralytic" and "nonparalytic" poliomyelitis-like lesions and disease, not only in monkeys, but on rare occasions in man.