Global Review of the Age Distribution of Rotavirus Disease in Children Aged <5 Years Before the Introduction of Rotavirus Vaccination
Authors: Hasso-Agopsowicz Mateusz , Ladva Chandresh Nanji , Lopman Benjamin , Sanderson Colin , Cohen Adam L , Tate Jacqueline E , Riveros Ximena , Henao-Restrepo Ana Maria , Clark Andrew ,   Global Rotavirus Surveillance Network and Rotavirus Age Study Collaborators, Alkorta M , Atchison C , Banajeh S , Becker-Dreps S , Benhafid M , Bhandari N , Bodhidatta L , Braeckman T , Bwogi J , de Cassia Compagnoli Carmona R , Cilla G , Contreras-Roldan I , Coulson B , Cunliffe N A , Dagan R , Givon N , Degiuseppe J I , Dhiman S , Dian Z , Diaz J , Dutta S , Krishnan T , Manna B , Fletcher-Lartey S , Fu C , Gendrel D , Ghenghesh K S , Gonzalez Mago G , De Grazia S , Grimwood K , Groome M , Haque A , Heininger U , Houpt E R , Iturriza-Gomara M , Hungerford D , Jarquin C M , McCracken J P , Contreras I L , Cordon-Rosales C , Kaiser-Labusch P , Kang G , Kar S , Kiulia N , Kotloff K , Latipov R , Linhares A , Lorrot M , Mandile M , Mast C , Mathew M A , Matinon-Torres F , Matthijnssens J , Mladenova Z , Monini M , Montes M , Arana A , Motamedifar M , Najafi A , Nelson T , Nokes J , Ntoumi F , Numazaki K , O’Reilly C , Ochoa T J , Page N A , Page A L , Langendorf C , Podkolzin A T , Quach C , Racz M L , de Rougemont A , Ruiz-Palacios G M , Saha S K , Saha S , Satter S M , Soares L , Sudarmo S M , Shigemura K , Shirakawa T , Athiyyah A F , Tagbo B , Tarr P , Klein E , Denno D M , Turner A , Uzoma E B , Vatosoa R R , Wandera E A , Wikswo M , Payne D , Yhu-Chering H , Yoshikawa T , Sugata K , Yuan Q , Liying L , Zaman K , Zhou X -N , Zhang S -X , Xu W , Serhan Fatima , Nakamura Tomoka , Antoni Sébastien , Agócs Mary , Murray Jillian , Cherian Thomas , Mwenda Jason M , Weldegebriel Goitom , Biey Joseph N M , Cheikh Dah , Teleb Nadia , Rahman Hossam Abdel , Ahmed Hinda , Daniels Danni , Videbaek Dovile , Wasley Annemarie , Singh Simarjit , de Oliveira Lucia , Rey-Benito Gloria , Sanwogou N Jennifer , Liyanage Jayantha , Wijesinghe Pushpa Ranjan , Batmunkh Nyambat , Grabovac Varja , Fox Kimberley , Paladin Fem Julia , Henschke Nicholas 
Published: January 2019

We sought datasets with granular age distributions of rotavirus-positive disease presentations among children <5 years of age, before the introduction of rotavirus vaccines. We identified 117 datasets and fit parametric age distributions to each country dataset and mortality stratum. We calculated the median age and the cumulative proportion of rotavirus gastroenteritis events expected to occur at ages between birth and 5.0 years. The median age of rotavirus-positive hospital admissions was 38 weeks (interquartile range [IQR], 25–58 weeks) in countries with very high child mortality and 65 weeks (IQR, 40–107 weeks) in countries with very low or low child mortality. In countries with very high child mortality, 69% of rotavirus-positive admissions in children <5 years of age were in the first year of life, with 3% by 10 weeks, 8% by 15 weeks, and 27% by 26 weeks. This information is critical for assessing the potential benefits of alternative rotavirus vaccination schedules in different countries and for monitoring program impact.