Rotavirus.

Author information

Abstract

Group A rotavirus (RVA) is the major cause of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) in young children worldwide. Introduction of two live, attenuated rotavirus vaccines, Rotarix® and RotaTeq®, has dramatically reduced RVA-associated AGE and mortality. High-throughput, sensitive and specific techniques are required to rapidly diagnose and characterize rotavirus strains in stool samples for proper patient treatment and to monitor circulating vaccine and wild-type rotavirus strains. New molecular assays are rapidly developed that are more sensitive and specific than the conventional assays for detection, genotyping and full genome characterization of circulating rotavirus wild-type and vaccine (Rotarix® and RotaTeq®) strains causing AGE.