Epidemic Keratoconjunctivitis at a Vietnamese Refugee Camp in Florida

Zwelghaft, R. M., J. C. Hierholzer and J. A. Bryan (CDC, Atlanta, GA 30333). Epidemic keratoconjunctivitis at a Vietnamese refugee camp in Florida. Am J Epidemiol 106:399–407, 1977. During the summer of 1975 an ongoing outbreak of conjunctivitis occurred among Vietnamese refugees temporarily housed at a U.S. mainland camp. Twenty-two per cent of surveyed refugees gave a history of the disease and 10% were documented as having clinical conjunctivitis at the time of the survey. Fifty-six per cent of documented cases were in children less than 10 years of age. The attack rate among American camp personnel was 4%. Comprehensive microbiologic analysis revealed multiple potential pathogens in most cases, but the recovery of adenovirus 8 (AV8) in 81% of cases cultured within two weeks of onset implicated AV8 as the principal cause of the epidemic.