ABSTRACT
Group A rotaviruses are the most important cause of acute diarrhea in children throughout the world. It is the cause of more than 450,000 deaths per year. There are few data available about rotavirus type circulating in Egypt. Serotyping by ELISA with anti-VP7 serotype-specific monoclonal antibodies and genotyping by reverse transcription-PCR [RT-PCR] have been widely used for typing. The materials of this study comprised 100 stool specimens collected from children less than 5 years old suffering from acute diarrhea, attending Alexandria University Children's Hospital at El-Shatby during the period from January to December 2006. These specimens were subjected to RT-PCR. Rotavirus was detected by RT PCR in 33 [33%] of patients. In the present study, a total of 30 [90.9%] of the 33 rotavirus positive samples were found to be G typable and the remaining 3 [9.1%] were untypable. Out of the 33 rotavirus positive cases, G4 was the main genotype detected being responsible for 12 cases [36.4%] of rotavirus infections. G1 was the second most common cause and was responsible for 9 cases [27.3%] of the infections. Our study identified G9 in 6 [18.1%] of the positive cases. Mixed G types reflecting dual infections G1+G9 were detected in 3 [3%] of the samples. G2, G3, and G8 were not detected among our cases. These results underline the importance of continued detailed epidemiological and virological studies to identify rotavirus serotypes responsible for severe diarrhea, including characterization of less common and or unusual strains. Knowledge of rotavirus prevalence and strains circulating in the Egyptian community will add in assessing the suitability of candidate vaccines, in order to protect against all currently circulating rotavirus strains