Opportunistic infections with coronavirus-like particles in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus?

From 35 patients infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and belonging to various risk groups, 60 stool specimens were examined for the presence of Coronavirus-like particles (CVLP) using electron microscopy. CVLP were detected in 5 (8%) stool samples from 5 different patients (14%). Only one of the patients had diarrhoea. The five patients with CVLP-positive stools were all at advanced stages of HIV infection. The remarkable discrepancy between our data and another study, reporting a rate of 50% CVLP-positive HIV patients, most of them persistently shedding the virus, is discussed.