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Facts: Rotavirus gets its name from its wheel like appearance. Rotaviruses have 11 segments in their genome, each of which encodes for a separate protein. This virus is relatively stable in the environment.
Incubation period: The time between exposure to human rotavirus and onset of clinical symptoms is between 1-3 days. The disease lasts for an additional 2-8 days. Epidemiology: Human rotavirus is the major cause of infantile diarrheal illness. It causes diarrhea in over 125 million children in the world each year and is reponsible for about 873,000 deaths a year. Immunity after infection is usually incomplete. Children are especially suceptible to mutiple infections. Human rotavirus is spread mainly fecal-orally. Children are most susceptible to illness associated with human rotaviruses, whereas most infected adults are subclinical. Clinical disease occurs most often in the winter. Symptomatology and outcome: Nonbloody diarrhea, oftentimes profuse, is the main defining sign of human rotavirus infection. Diarrhea can be accompanied by emesis, anorexia, and fever. Children who become severely dehydrated due to diarrhea become lethargic and their head can appear to become misshapened. Prevention and management: Rotavirus is spread by direct contact, oftentimes nosocomially. Handwashing and caution of potential fomites can effectively prevent contraction of this virus. In 1998 an oral, live-attenuated tetravalent vaccine was licensed by the FDA. This vaccine, however, was reported to be linked with infant death from intussusception and was taken off the market in 1999. Human rotavirus is usually subclinical in adults. Thus for healthy adults treatment is not necessary. Human rotavirus, however, can be fatal in infants due to dehydration. Oral rehydration therapy can be used to effectively treat dehydration. top1. Camazine, Scott. 2001. http://www.scottcamazine.com/photos/virus/pages/reovirus_jpg.htm
2. Veterinary Sciences Division. 2004. http://www.qub.ac.uk/afs/ vs/vsd6e.html
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5. Creekmore, Terry. 2002. http://wdhfs.state.wy.us/vector_borne/_borders/Image155.gif
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topCenter for Disease Control, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Respiratory and Enteric Viruses Branch. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/gastro/rotavirus.htm
Kapikian, A. Z., Y. Hoshino, and R. M. Chanock. 2001. Rotavirus, p. 1787-1833. In D. M. Knipe et al. (ed.), Fields virology, 4th ed. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, Pa.
Siegel, Robert. Humans and Viruses class notes. Feb. 12, 2004.
Sonnen, Gregory, and Nancy Henry. 2001. Rotavirus, p. 426-427. In Wilson, Water et al. (ed.), Current Diagnosis and Treatment in Infectious Diseases, McGraw-Hill, Chicago, Il.
Wagner, Edward, and Martinez Hewlett. Basic Virology. Malden: Blackwell Science Ltd, 2004.
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