What is Rotavirus infection?

The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, recently launched the first indigenously developed and manufactured Rotavirus vaccine, ';Rotavac’, which can boost efforts to combat infant mortality due to diarrhea. Each year, diarrhea caused by rotavirus results up to 10 lakh hospitalizations.

Rotaviruses are estimated to be responsible for approximately 5, 27,000 deaths each year, with more than 85% of these deaths occurring in low-income countries in Africa and Asia, and over two million are hospitalized each year with pronounced dehydration. It is the most common cause of severe diarrheal (gastro enteritis) disease in infants and young children globally.

It is a genus of double-stranded RNA virus in the family Reoviridae. Nearly every child in the world has been infected with rotavirus at least once by the age of five. There are five species of this virus-A, B, C, D, and E. Rotavirus A, the most common species, causes more than 90% of rotavirus infections in humans.

The virus is transmitted by the fæcal-oral route. It infects and damages the cells that line the small intestine and causes gastroenteritis. Rotavirus was discovered in 1973 by Ruth Bishop and her colleagues by electron micrograph images. Diagnosis of infection with rotavirus normally follows diagnosis of gastroenteritis as the cause of severe diarrhea.

Most children admitted to hospital with gastroenteritis are tested for rotavirus A. Specific diagnosis of infection with rotavirus A is made by finding the virus in the child';s stool by enzyme immunoassay.

There are several licensed test kits in the market which are sensitive, specific and detect all serotypes of rotavirus A. Other methods, such as electron microscopy and PCR, are used in research laboratories. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) can detect and identify all species and serotypes of human rotavirus.