Importance of rotavirus as a cause of gastroenteritis in Jordan: a hospital based study.

Rotavirus is recognized to be a very important cause of GE in younger children in both developed as well as developing countries, but causes most of the mortality and morbidity in the latter. The recent introduction of a rotavirus vaccine in some parts of the world makes it necessary for us to determine the impact of this organism in our population with the aim of determining the need for the vaccine. In order to determine this, a study was conducted at the JUH and 3 other private hospitals. At the JUH, 64/256 (25%) of children with GE had rotavirus in 1995. The proportions of cases attributed to rotavirus in the other 3 y were 70/199 (35.2%), 69/279 (24.7%) and 76/294 (25.8%) for 2002, 2003 and 2004, respectively. The cumulative proportion of cases attributable to rotavirus gastroenteritis in all the y was 27.14%. With regard to the 3 private hospitals, rotavirus accounted for 38/225 (16.9%), 140/664 (21%) and 668/1496 (44.6%) at the Khalidy, Jordan and Islamic hospitals, respectively. It is concluded that rotavirus is a significant cause of GE in Jordanian children regardless of their social background, and attempt at controlling this infection may be warranted.