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From February 1985 to January 1986, 432 stool samples, 310 from rural African children with diarrhea and 122 from controls, were analysed for the presence of enteric viruses known to be associated with diarrhea. Group A rotavirus ELISA indicated 12.9% positivity among patients and 2.5% positivity among controls. Only 23 of the 43 rotavirus ELISA-positive stools were also positive by electron microscopy. Nine children, three of whom were controls, were found to be shedding coronavirus-like particles, detected by electron microscopy. Stools from all but one of the nine children had been taken within 1 month of each other. Dot-blot hybridization tests for the presence of Ad40 or Ad41 DNA revealed 44 positive stools, 41 of which were from patients (13.2% positivity). Only three of the Ad40-or Ad41-positive stools by DNA hybridization were positive by electron microscopy, and only these three strains could be grown in semipermissive Chang conjunctival cells and their identity checked by restriction enzyme analysis. Further attempts to rescue the other strains using a helper virus failed, but nine of the stools proved positive by ELISA using a subgroup F-specific monoclonal antibody. On the basis of the DNA hybridization results alone, subgroup F adenoviruses were encountered as frequently as rotavirus in the study and were significantly associated with diarrhea, although the viability and intactness of virus particles by the time of laboratory analysis appeared to be very low.