[Rotavirus infections in childhood: studies using a molecular biology method (gene electrophoresis)].

During a 15-month period all children below 16 years admitted to the Children's Hospital in St. Gallen with acute diarrheal disease were studied for rotavirus (RV) infection. Stool samples from control patients without gastrointestinal disease were investigated for RV shedding in order to detect RV carriers or asymptomatically infected children. RV was detected by electrophoresis of RV genomic dsRNA in 154 children. 119 (58%) of 205 patients hospitalized because of diarrhea were RV associated, 25 children became symptomatically ill during their hospitalization, and in 10 (1%) of 954 control patients RV could be found. During the winter 1983/1984 two epidemic peaks of RV associated diarrhea were noted, whereas in the summer period RV related disease occurred only sporadically. The peak incidence of RV infection was in the age group between 10 and 12 months. After the 3rd year of life RV infection only rarely required hospitalization. During this study period 8 different genomic RNA patterns of RV were found. The number of patients within these 8 RV types, however, is too small to allow definite correlations between epidemiological or clinical features and selected electrophorotypes. The possibility to perform refined epidemiological and clinical analyses of RV infection by genomic dsRNA electrophoresis offers important advantages when compared to other RV detection systems. In addition, this method has proven to be fast, simple and reliable.