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Vol. 10 - Num. 37

Brief Reports

Rotavirus: old illness, new vaccines

Francisco José Sanz Santaeufemiaa, MA Roa Franciab, ME García Talaverac, M Tejedor Torres, M Sebastián Planas

aSección de Pediatría Hospitalaria. Hospital Infantil Universitario Niño Jesús. Madrid. España.
bServicio de Pediatría. Hospital General de Móstoles. Servicio Madrileño de Salud (Área 8). Móstoles. Madrid. España.
cMédico de Familia. CS Felipe II. Móstoles. Madrid. España.

Correspondence: FJ Sanz. E-mail: sanzsantaeufemiafj@gmail.com

Reference of this article: Sanz Santaeufemia FJ, Roa Francia MA, García Talavera ME, Tejedor Torres M, Sebastián Planas M. Rotavirus: old illness, new vaccines. Rev Pediatr Aten Primaria. 2008;10:89-98.

Published in Internet: 31-03-2008 - Visits: 8490

Abstract

Rotavirus is a major cause of diarrhoea in childhood. It shows an enormous morbidity and mortality in developing countries, being responsible for approximately half a million deaths per year among children aged less than five years. In the other hand in Europe and United States of America nearly one third of admissions by gastroenteritis are due to this microorganism.

Rotavirus infects almost all infants by the age of five years, although severe disease appears almost always in children of three to thirty-six months. Rotavirus appears in high concentrations in the stools of infected children having an increasing capacity of transmission person to person. Burden of the disease and its social and economic cost are extremely high reaching one thousand and six hundred euros by each hospitalization.

Two new oral vaccines have been commercialized in our country last year. Both of them report an excellent profile of security and a high efficacy in the prevention of severe disease, dehydration and admissions to hospital because of gastroenteritis in the childhood population.

Keywords

Acute gastroenteritis Diarrhoea Hospitalization Rotavirus Vaccines

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