Rotaviruses are the most common cause of severe diarrhea in children under 5 years of age worldwide with a higher prevalence in developing countries. In accordance with the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations for the global use of rotavirus vaccines, it is important to review trends of rotavirus epidemiology, distribution and diversity of rotavirus strains in the pre-vaccine period....

Rotavirus is a major cause of severe gastroenteritis among very young children. In developing countries, rotavirus is the major cause of mortality in children under five years old, causing up to 20% of all childhood deaths in countries with high diarrheal disease burden, with more than 90% of these deaths occurring in Africa and Asia. Rotavirus vaccination mimics the first infection without cau...

In anticipation of the imminent licensure of rotavirus vaccine, we evaluated the cost-effectiveness of rotavirus vaccine in Japan by taking into account the considerable variations in the incidence of rotavirus-associated hospitalizations previously reported in the literature. We assumed that the variation was due to local differences in healthcare utilization practices rather than a true diffe...

OBJECTIVES To assess the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of routine childhood vaccination by new vaccines against rotavirus in France. METHODS We constructed a Markov decision tree to compare two alternatives: "no vaccination" and "vaccination". A hypothetical birth cohort of 750,000 children was followed until 3 years of age. First, the disease burden without vaccine was estimated using...

To the Editor: Gurgel et al. described the predominance of P[4]G2 rotaviruses in a vaccinated population in Aracaju, northeastern Brazil (1). However, several limitations need to be addressed to avoid misinterpretation of data that could lead to loss of confi dence in the vaccine in Brazil and other countries. Brazil was one of the fi rst countries in Latin America to introduce a live, oral, at...

In the past few years, two live attenuated, orallyadministered rotavirus vaccines were available for Indian children immunized by pediatricians in private practice – a monovalent human rotavirus vaccine [RV1; Rotarix (GSK Biologicals, Rixensart, Belgium)] and a pentavalent bovine-human reassortant vaccine [RV5; RotaTeq (Merck and Co, Inc, Pennsylvania)] [1,2]. Initially, in 2006, these vaccines...

There is an urgent need for a rotavirus vaccine, because up to 592,000 infants and young children <5 years old die each year from rotavirus diarrhea, predominantly in the developing countries. We have developed a tetravalent human-bovine rotavirus (UK) reassortant vaccine with VP7 (G) specificity for serotypes 1, 2, 3, and 4, which has been shown to be safe, immunogenic, and effective in preven...

Rotavirus, the most common diarrheal pathogen in children worldwide, causes approximately one third of diarrhea-associated hospitalizations and 800,000 deaths per year. Because natural infection reduces the incidence and severity of subsequent episodes, rotavirus diarrhea might be controlled through vaccination. Serotypespecific immunity may play a role in protection from disease. Tetravalent r...

The objective of this study is to estimate the cost-effectiveness of mass vaccination of US infants with the recently available rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq. We developed a dynamic transmission model of rotavirus to incorporate herd immunity into cost-effectiveness analysis. Our study indicates that a rotavirus vaccination program would prevent about 90% of rotavirus incidence, mortality, hospita...

Background. Group A rotavirus (RVA) infection is the major cause of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) in young children worldwide. Introduction of two live-attenuated rotavirus vaccines, RotaTeq® and Rotarix®, has dramatically reduced RVA associated AGE and mortality in developed as well as in many developing countries. High-throughput methods are needed to genotype rotavirus wild-type strains and to...