Background
The first rotavirus vaccine, a live oral tetravalent vaccine derived from a rotavirus isolated from a rhesus monkey, is expected be licensed in the United States and Europe in 1998.
Incidence
Rotaviruses are the most common cause of severe diarrhoea worldwide. In developing countries, rotavirus infection may cause up to one million deaths each year, accounting for an estimated 20-25% of all deaths due to diarrhoea and 6% of all deaths among children less than five years old. Although rotaviral diarrhoea in children in the USA is generally milder than that in developing countries, the virus is still responsible for approximately 55,000 hospitalizations (1 in 73 infants) in the USA each year.