Walsh & Hoyt: Coronaviridae

The Coronaviridae are pleomorphic, enveloped, single-stranded RNA viruses with widely spaced, club-shaped projections (after which they are named). The family is not subdivided into genera but instead into antigenic groups. Human coronaviruses in this family are common causes of respiratory and intestinal disease in humans. They do not routinely cause either neurologic or ocular disease; however, Riski and Hovi described two children and one adult with neurologic disorders associated with evidence of infection by coronavirus. One patient was a 3-year old boy with aseptic meningitis. The second was a 4-year old boy with an upper respiratory tract infection and seizures. The third patient was a 51-year-old woman who complained of vertigo and was found to have increasing antibody titers to coronavirus from 1:32 to 1:128 over several weeks.