Summary
Rotavirus is the most important cause of severe diarrheal disease among infants and children. Each year throughout the world, children suffer an estimated 130 million episodes of rotavirus diarrhea, and at least 600,000 children under 5 years of age die from rotavirus. A recently developed rotavirus vaccine was effective in preventing severe disease due to rotavirus among infants and children. Immunization of infants with this vaccine was shown to be cost-effective. However, this vaccine was withdrawn from the market because of its association with a potentially fatal intestinal tract complication. Newer rotavirus vaccines are currently under development and evaluation in the United States and elsewhere.

Despite the proven importance of rotavirus as a childhood disease in developed countries, many countries in Asia, including China, have not undertaken a systematic and comprehensive effort to determine the morbidity, mortality and costs associated with rotavirus.

To describe the rotavirus disease burden in China, IVI is launching a two-year hospital-based surveillance program that will assess the disease burden in six sentinel hospitals. All infants and children aged < 5 years with diarrhea will be enrolled and parent/guardians will be interviewed by trained clinicians to collect clinical history information. Fecal specimens will be collected and transported to the hospital clinical laboratory for detection of rotavirus antigen using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

Laboratory analysis at two Chinese reference laboratories will be conducted to describe circulating strains of rotavirus in China. On a regular basis, trained personnel will ship specimens to the WHO Collaborating Center on Rotavirus at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for laboratory confirmation of identified strains as well as cataloguing strains for the WHO rotavirus reference library.

International Symposium on Rotavirus