All specimens received were subjected to virus isolation. Fifty specimens from 44 children, of a total of 579 (8.6%) specimens, were too heavily contaminated with bacteria. Twenty four of the contaminated specimens were rectal swabs, 19 were throat swabs and 7 were from various skin lesions. All remaining uncontaminated cell culture harvests were tested for enteroviruses by using the pan-EV set of primers and 235 of the 529 (44.4%) specimens tested yielded an enterovirus, but only 15 of the 235 (6.4%) enteroviruses were HEV71. These specimens were from 259 children and an enterovirus was isolated from 153 (59.1%) children. Only 6 (3.9%) of the children had HEV71.