Epidemiology and genetic diversity of group A rotavirus in acute diarrhea patients in pre‐vaccination era in southwest China

Group A rotavirus (RVA) is one of the leading cause of acute diarrhea worldwide, the RVA-related disease burden and the genotypes of RVA is important reference to introduce RVA variance to national immunisation programmes, 1,121 diarrhea cases and 319 healthy controls were recruited from four sentinel hospital outpatient from July 2014 to June 2015. The prevalence of RVA was 244 (21.8%) in gastroenteritis cases and in 12 (3.8%) in healthy controls across all age group (OR = 7.12, 95%CI = 3.93-12.89); the detection rate of RVA in diarrhea patients under 5 years was more higher than in diarrhea cases over 5 years (26.1%, 222/850; 8.1%, 22/271, respectively, P = 0.000). Of 244 RVA strains isolated from acute diarrhea cases, G9 (66.4%) was predominant G genotype, followed by G3 (18.7%), G1 (8.9%), and G1G3 (3.8%); P[8] was the overwhelming prevalence P genotype, followed by P[4] (4.7%); G9P[8] (54.9%) was most common G and P Combination, followed by G3P[8] (17.6%) and G1[8] (8.6%). The conclusion of the study was important to provide reference for introducing the RVA vaccine to prevent and control RVA-associated disease burden. J. Med. Virol. 89:71-78, 2017.