[Detection of rotavirus infection in Danish children].

INTRODUCTION

Rotavirus (RV) is the most frequent causative agent of severe diarrhoea in infants and young children worldwide, also in Denmark. However, the actual number of diagnosed RV cases among Danish children is unknown. If a new RV-vaccine is to be introduced in Denmark, updated data on RV disease burden is important and the validity of potential surveillance systems needs to be explored.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

We established a nation-wide database on all children below the age of 5 years who had a RV-positive sample detected from 2001 to 2004 at one of the 13 laboratories in Denmark performing RV diagnostics. Hospital discharge diagnoses among the RV-positive children were retrieved from the Danish Hospital Discharge Register (DHDR).

RESULTS

A total of 1,789 children < 5 years were registered with 1,800 episodes of RV-diarrhoea. The overall Danish annual incidence rate (IR) of RV-episodes in the 2001-2004 period was calculated to 1.3 per 1,000 children < 5 years. IR varied considerably between counties, the highest being estimated in the county of Copenhagen (IR = 2.6 per 1,000 children < 5 years) and the lowest in the county of Vejle. According to the DHDR, 1,072 RV-positive episodes were associated with hospitalisation, but only 32% were correctly diagnosed as RV-gastroenteritis.

CONCLUSION

The low IR of RV-episodes among Danish children, the geographic variation and the diagnostic inaccuracy of hospitalised RV-episodes indicates an incomplete and uneven examination of RV-episodes in Denmark.