Talk:Rotavirus

rotavirus types

Should I put new information about the rotaviruses under the section of epidemiology or create another section for it ? Sidhujupinder (talk) 03:09, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

What new information do you want to add? Graham Beards (talk) 10:27, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

I plan to add information about pathogenicity and history of origin of rotavirus species A-J separately. I saw species A and B has some information provided but the others are missing. Sidhujupinder (talk) 17:27, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the article would be improved by adding that, but you can add you proposed text here and we can discuss this. Graham Beards (talk) 18:08, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

URLs redundant with identifier

To answer the question about my edit (sorry about not seeing it earlier): those URLs are redundant because the DOI already conveys the same information (where to locate the work in the publisher's website) and because the template already takes care of linkifying the title.

Also, at least [1] looks broken here (bad HTTPS certificate); the existing link doi:10.1093/ije/dyn260 reaches the intended destination which is, I presume, [2]. Nemo 14:44, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

They reach different destinations. One goes to the abstract the other goes directly to the PDF. Graham Beards (talk) 14:50, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Sure, and an URL which only returns an error is different from one which works, but that doesn't mean the broken URL should stay. Do you think the URL should be [3]? What should be done the next time this URL also breaks?

In my opinion the most important thing is that the full text of the work be easily accessible. The autolinked PMC2800782 achieves that and provides the same full text as [4], with the added benefit of being a more stable and reliable URL. The academic.oup.com URLs are extremely unpredictable: for instance this one either redirects to some silverchair.com IIS server or returns an HTTP 403 error if it doesn't like the user's network (like the Tor network), so it's rather user-hostile to have such an URL in our pages.

If you want to manually maintain the links to the full text, I don't mean to step on your toes. (Thanks for adding those in the first place! I also appreciate direct links to PDFs whenever possible.) You can also add doi-access=free to clarify that those URLs are actually open access, as it seems to be the case right now. The OAbot tool can help you with that on some pages.

Let me know what's your preference and I'll try to follow it. Nemo 15:00, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Primary study

This is a primary study which we avoid in medical articles (see WP:MEDRS).

Wahyuni RM, Utsumi T, Dinana Z, Yamani LN, Juniastuti, Wuwuti IS, Fitriana E, Gunawan E, Liang Y, Ramadhan F, Soetjipto, Lusida MI, Shoji I (2021). "Prevalence and Distribution of Rotavirus Genotypes Among Children With Acute Gastroenteritis in Areas Other Than Java Island, Indonesia, 2016-2018". Frontiers in Microbiology. 12: 672837. doi:10.3389/fmicb.2021.672837. PMC 8137317. PMID 34025628.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

The statement is already fully supported by the Suzuki (2019) review and another citation is redundant. Graham Beards (talk) 07:38, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

SA11 not a single strain

According to NCBI taxonomy and also the Matthijnssens paper (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2556306/) there are several substrains of SA11, fortunately with similar antigenic signature. SCIdude (talk) 09:22, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

There are sub-strains of all rotaviruses: their genomic RNAs are polymorphic. This has been known since the 1980s. What is considered more important is their antigenicity. SA11 strains are all the same serotype. Graham Beards (talk) 10:43, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Recent edit

I have reverted a recent edit. The editor gave this summary: "Source claiming that almost all children are infected with rotavirus by the age of five did not have any claims for that. The only reference to a population <5 years of age in the article claims, "rotavirus causes 440,000 annual deaths in children <5 years of age worldwide."

But the citation given says:

"The disease is ubiquitous, affecting nearly all children by the age of 5 years." Graham Beards (talk) 08:37, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

It seems the issue was the citation itself, not the claim. "The disease is ubiquitous..." is from Bernstein 2009 (PMID 19252423), cited in the lead, while the claim in the Epidemiology section challenged by IAzyn (talk · contribs) is attributed to Parashar et al. 2006 (PMID 16494759). I think it's just a matter of re-citing Bernstein in Epidemiology (the Parashar article really does not support the claim). Fvasconcellos (t·c) 09:23, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh I see, thanks I'll do that. Graham Beards (talk) 11:22, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

I see your change of the citation now, thank you for clarifying. Fvasconcellos (t·c) is correct in my initial intent and reasoning of removing the claim that "almost all children are infected with rotavirus by the age of five." Parashar et al. 2006 (PMID 16494759) was originally cited in the spot and upon reading the article, there was no data that reinforced that position. However, I see an improvement after reading over your revised source from Bernstein 2009 (PMID 19252423).

The sentence you claim substantiates the point, "The disease is ubiquitous, affecting nearly all children by the age of 5 years" (Bernstein 2009 PMID 19252423), is present in the abstract. Upon further investigation, this claim found in the abstract is further expounded on in Section 1, "Rotavirus infection is nearly universal, with approximately 95% of children experiencing rotavirus gastroenteritis by age 5 years." This claim is actually not substantiated in this article, it is only used as an introductory datapoint. Bernstein actually cites William Atkinson's book titled Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (ISBN-10 9990234221), which itself states, "95% of children experience at least one rotavirus infection by age 5 years. The incidence of rotavirus is similar in developed and developing countries, suggesting that improved sanitation alone is not sufficient to prevent the infection."

I will be changing the general claim of "almost all" to the more precise figure of ~95% as well as changing the citation. Azyn (talk) 20:57, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

No, I disagree. And you did more than that. You introduced poor grammar " with almost 2 million resulting in hospitalisation", which is an ugly fused participle and you changed "boys" and " girls" to "males" and "females", which misses the point that this is a childhood disease. Could you please propose your edits on this page first before editing the article. Graham Beards (talk) 21:37, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Continued discussion

I happened upon the article following links. When I got to the second paragraph of the "Signs and symptoms" section I had to stop and reread the lead: The opening sentence states: Rotaviruses are the most common cause of diarrhoeal disease among infants and young children. The second paragraph uses a more broad "infants and children", omitting young. So this is largely a childhood disease? Largely because "infections can occur throughout life" as it apparently can infect someone to age 45.

The "Signs and symptoms" section, second sentence of the second paragraph: "infection rates are highest in children under two years of age". The third sentence states: "The most severe symptoms tend to occur in children six months to two years of age". As stated above.

There needs to be some clarity. Also, the virus is a Zoonotic Disease. -- Otr500 (talk) 16:19, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

First, it is not a zoonotic disease. Although rotaviruses infect most mammals (and some birds), the spread is mainly human to human. Second, it is a disease of childhood, although infections in older children and adults have been recorded, this is rare, at least with group A rotaviruses, which are by far the most common ones in humans.

Reply: Mainly human to human: My bad-- there appears to be a lot of misinformation "out there". In the "Other animals" section of the article, the two last paragraphs states: "These rotaviruses are a potential reservoir for genetic exchange with human rotaviruses. There is evidence that animal rotaviruses can infect humans, either by direct transmission of the virus or by contributing one or several RNA segments to reassortants with human strains

In my opinion, if only one instance of evidence shows a jump from any animal to human, that would seem to indicate zoonosis.

• USDA:

Epidemiological studies have shown that there are several rotavirus types which are shared in common by humans and animals. Generally, rotaviruses are species-specific, but cross species transmission is possible. It has been demonstrated experimentally that rotaviruses which have been isolated from one species of animal, or humans, can infect another animal species. Several case studies have indicated infection of humans by animal rotaviruses. Comparison of genetic sequences of human and animal rotaviruses often reveals close identity. Also:

There may be a continual, albeit very low level, of input of rotavirus strains or sequences into the human population from the animal population.

• Pirbright.

The reassortment of the genome segments enables the virus to mutate rapidly to produce new strains. This means that rotaviruses are able to jump from animals to humans and they are therefore classified as zoonotic viruses.

• NCBI Bovine rotavirus is the most recognized pathogen causing acute diarrhea in calves under one month of age worldwide [1, 2]. It has also been recognized as the major pathogen of acute diarrhea in both humans and animals. So, it has the potential of zoonotic and economic impact
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33468689/

At Least Seven Distinct Rotavirus Genotype Constellations in Bats with Evidence of Reassortment and Zoonotic Transmissions

• CDC :Conclusions:

We identified multiple, genetically divergent rotavirus species in common shrews in Germany. These animals should be further investigated as a potential reservoir for rotaviruses capable of infecting humans. -- Otr500 (talk) 03:00, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

The infection is spread mainly by human to human transmission, probably exclusively in urban settings. Animal reservoirs, and reassortment therein, exist and animal to human transmission can occur, but this is rare. An infection can be a zoonosis, but this is not enough to define the disease as a "zoonotic disease". Rotaviral gastroenteritis never has been because it would be wrong. Please don't mistake a zoonotic virus with a zoonotic disease: they are not the same. The importance of animal reservoirs in the epidemiology of influenza for example is well documented, but the disease, particularly seasonal influenza, is never called a zoonosis. Graham Beards (talk) 07:41, 26 October 2024 (UTC)