Patent ID: 8048630

Claim:
A method of detecting a human parechovirus (HPeV) and Ljungan virus (LV) species of Parechovirus, comprising, contacting cDNA reverse transcribed from RNA isolated from a sample with a composition that permits amplification of the cDNA, wherein the composition comprises a forward primer and a first reverse primer, wherein the forward and first reverse primers hybridize to opposite strands of a Parechovirus 5′ nontranslated region (5′NTR), and wherein the forward primer comprises a degenerate oligonucleotide comprising at least 95% sequence identity to the nucleic acid sequence set forth as SEQ ID NO: 1, and wherein the first reverse primer comprises a degenerate oligonucleotide comprising at least 95% sequence identity to the nucleic acid sequence set forth as SEQ ID NO: 2 or SEQ ID NO: 4; performing an amplification procedure under conditions sufficient to amplify Parechovirus cDNA and produce a Parechovirus amplicon Parechovirus, wherein the Parechovirus amplicon comprises at least a portion of the Parechovirus 5′NTR nucleic acid sequence if Parechovirus is present in the sample, thereby generating a first reaction sample; and detecting whether the Parechovirus amplicon is present in the first reaction sample, wherein the presence of the Parechovirus amplicon indicates that at least one HPeV or LV species of Parechovirus is present in the sample.