Rotavirus can cause children to lose body fluids very quickly and is especially dangerous for children less than two years of age. Children between 6 and 24 months of age have the highest risk for getting the disease. In the United States, rotavirus cause seasonal peaks of gastroenteritis from November to May each year, with activity beginning in the Southwest United States and spreading to the Northeast. Rotaviral gastroenteritis usually starts with fever, an upset stomach, and vomiting, followed by diarrhea. The diarrhea can be mild to severe and generally will last for 3 to 9 days.
Severe diarrhea can lead to a dangerous condition called dehydration, which can result in death.
Virtually all children become infected in the first 3-5 years of life, but severe diarrhea and dehydration occur primarily among children aged 3 to 35 months. In the first 5 years of life, four out of five children in the United States will develop rotavirus diarrhea, one in seven will require a clinic or emergency room visit, one in 78 will require hospitalization and one in 200,000 will die from rotavirus diarrhea. Rotavirus is very easy to catch. Rotaviruses are shed in high concentrations in the stool of infected children and are often transmitted by the fecal-oral route. Contaminated hands or objects pass the virus from one infected child to another.