Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Rotavirus declining; vaccines may be helping
Fewer children are contracting rotavirus this season, which may be due to a recently introduced vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.
Rotavirus is highly contagious and is the leading cause of severe gastroenteritis in babies and children, the report said. Typically, more than 410,000 infants and young children visit doctors offices and 55,000-70,000 are hospitalized annually because of rotavirus in the United States.
However, research indicates that the 2007-2008 season of rotavirus started later, ended earlier and was overall less severe than it had been in the previous 15 years. The number of laboratory tests conducted to check for the disease was 37 percent lower than usual, and the number of tests that turned up positive for rotavirus was 79 percent lower than usual.
In 2006, CDC recommended a routine rotavirus vaccine for all infants at 2, 4 and 6 months of age.