1. Introduction
Acute gastroenteritis (AGE) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality and is still a significant public health problem for infants and young children worldwide. Human Adenoviruses (HAdVs) are members of the genusMastadenovirus in the family Adenoviridae and are known to cause a wide spectrum of acute and chronic diseases, including gastroenteritis, conjunctivitis, hepatitis, myocarditis, and pneumonia. HAdV is a linear, double-stranded DNA virus with a genome size of 26–45 kb and classified into 7 subgroups (A to G) and more than 100 genotypes [https://talk.ictvonline.org/taxonomy/]. HAdVs of subgroup F consisting of serotypes HAdVF-40 and HAdVF-41, also known as enteric adenoviruses, are the most common cause of gastroenteritis in children and adults (Akihara et al., 2005; Shimizu et al., 2007; Lee et al., 2012). The association of other subgroups of HAdV with gastrointestinal tract infections has also been reported over the period (Hierholzer 1992; Li et al., 2005; Banyai et al.,2009; Knipe et al., 2013; Afrad et al., 2018). In the present study, on the background of scanty data on HAdVs circulating in India, clinical, epidemiological, and virological investigations were conducted on AGE patients hospitalized in four cities of India between 2013 and 2016.