Symptomatic and Asymptomatic Rotavirus Infections Among Urban Population of Early Childhood: A Cross-Sectional Study

The infections caused by rotavirus are given paramount attention worldwide as they are often implicated with significant morbidity and mortality of childhood population. The present study attempted to explore the prevalence of symptomatic and asymptomatic rotavirus infections among the children dwelling from Chennai city, India. Two hundred children below the age of 5, belonging to two categories, were screened for the rotavirus infection by means of detection of viral antigen from stool samples by Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay. The overall prevalence of rotavirus infection was 34% which encompassed 53.3% and 22.4% symptomatic and asymptomatic cases. Within the symptomatic subjects, 48.7% and 58.3% of male and female children were positive for the infection. The rates of positivity to the viral infection among the male and female asymptomatic cases respectively were 25.9% and 19.4%. Attributable sociodemographic and medical factors identified for rotavirus infection among the symptomatic and asymptomatic cases respectively were, domicile of low scale area (77.5 and 71.4%), low education level of parents (80.0 and 60.7%) and lack of vaccination (92.5 and 82.1%). Breast feeding showed better protective impact on symptomatic cases (47.5) than the asymptomatic cases (32.1%). Need for further investigations on virus strains implicated with asymptomatic infections and vaccine failure has been suggested for ensuring sustainable public health of young population.