It was not until the early 1970s that a viral agent was first associated with gastrointestinal disease in infants, namely infantile diarrhea. Rotaviruses are RNA viruses that replicate in the intestine. This genus from the family Reoviridae contains the single most important etiologic agents of severe diarrheal illness of infants and young children worldwide. Rotaviruses share a number of features with influenza viruses, to a degree that makes influenza a useful model for describing rotaviruses.
Rotaviruses change their surface proteins over time.
In addition, rotaviruses circulate in animals and that circulation probably provides an important reservoir for the development of strains of strains new to humans. This page was created by Chan, John, and Elias.