ROTAVIRUS DIARRHEA IN THAI INFANTS AND CHILDREN

One hundred and three children aged from 1 month to 5 years were asses sed for human rotavirus (HRV) infection over a 5-week period at the Ch ildren's Hospital, Bangkok. HRV was present in 18% and adenovirus in 1 0.7% of the children with gastro-enteritis. None of the controls excre ted HRV. Vomiting and dehydration were significantly associated with H RV diarrhoea. A comparison of the reliability of the detection methods showed the following sensitivities: RNA-polyacrylamide gel electropho resis (PAGE) 90%, electron microscopy (EM) 84% and Rotascreen latex pa rticle agglutination (LPA) 80%. PAGE and EM were 100% specific while t he Rotascreen LPA was 81% specific. Rotascreen LPA gave 15.5% false po sitive results. Of the HRV positive samples analyzed by PAGE, 5.3% and 94.7% were of subgroups I and II, respectively. The ID enzyme immunoa ssay and PAGE are reliable and inexpensive methods which can be recomm ended for HRV detection, particularly in areas with little technical s upport.