Novel aspects in the pathogenesis of rotavirus infections:: possible consequences for food safety

Group A rotaviruses are among the most important etiological agents of severe diarrhoeal illness of infants and young children worldwide, as well as the most significant cause of viral gastroenteritis in young animals, including mammalian and avian species. Generally rotavirus injection is thought to be confined to the intestinal tract, resulting in diarrhoea. Young individuals may die as a result of dehydration or secondary bacterial infection, but most of them recover within 3 to 4 days. Until recently, extraintestinal rotavirus infections have been thought to play an insignificant role in disease because they were rarely observed and often transitory. Recent data, however, demonstrate that rotavirus routinely escapes the gastrointestinal tract, resulting in antigenaemia and viraemia. These findings may have considerable impact on the epidemiology, and, due to the zoonotic characteristics of these viruses, also to a possible risk of foodborne infection. A competitive reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect and quantitate the RNA of group A rotaviruses is described. The application of this method will allow to get more insight into the significance of the new aspects described above, particularly with regard to rotavirus infections of slaughtering animals and food safety.