[3] Aichivirus A was originally identified after a 1989 outbreak of acute gastroenteritis in the Aichi Prefecture that was linked to raw oyster consumption per genetic analysis.

[1][4][5] Human Aichi Virus can cause gastroenteritis with symptoms arising such as vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, and feve.

[3][6] Aichivirus A can be found in a variety of environmental areas including sewage, groundwater, river water, and shellfish.

[2] Aichivirus A is present in many world regions, and in sometimes greater abundance than other well-known enteric viruses.

[8] The widespread nature of aichivirus A can be seen in the high percentage of AiV antibodies in adult human populations found in several countries.

[2] After the virus is replicated in the gastrointestinal tract, the pathogen can be found in fecal samples of infected individuals.

[2] Aichivirus A was first characterized after an outbreak of gastroenteritis in the Aichi Prefecture of Japan, this region is where the name of the virus was derived from.

[12][3] Viral replication in the gastrointestinal tract damages the enterocyte layer in the intestinal villi interfering with water reabsorption[12] This can lead to the symptoms appearing with infection.

[15] Human aichivirus was deemed to effect multiple organs leading to the clinical symptom presentation.

Along the 5' end of the RNA, there is an untranslated region consisting of 744 nucleotides, a VpG protein, and an internal ribosomal entry site (IRES).

[23][24] However, genotype C is not widely seen to cause human infection and has only been described in one study a fecal sample from a child case of gastroenteritis after a trip to Mali.

[9] Aichivirus A can be found in a variety of environmental sources potentially leading to infection through food and water consumption.

[3] Many safety protocols only take into account bacteria and not viruses, which makes shellfish a vector for viral transmission.

[3] In a year-long study in Japan on viral detection in clams, 33% of the grocery store samples contained aichivirus A.

[16] Under electron microscopy, a canyon-like valley is seen on the surface of the capsid, likely where receptor binding occurs for entry.

[16] Reverse transcription-RNA polymerase chain reaction is also widely used in aichivirus research for identification and genotype differentiation.

[31] Reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) is also widely used for detection and to determine viral numbers.