Rotavirus infection: symptoms, treatment, prevention and vaccination

Intestinal infection, popularly known as intestinal flu, has another comprehensive definition - rotavirus. This is a disease familiar to many mothers, which is especially severe in children.

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Contents:

• What is rotavirus?
• Diarrhea is a symptom of infection!
• Incubation period of intestinal flu
• How long does intestinal flu last?
• How the virus is transmitted
• Ways of infection
• Symptoms of rotavirus infection
• Rotavirus in children and adults
• Treatment
• Diet
• When a doctor's help is extremely necessary
• Prevention of intestinal flu and vaccination

In the warm season, it is customary to protect the child from intestinal infections, and in the cold - from colds. But often at the turn of the seasons, rotavirus infection is activated, which manifests itself with three main symptoms - diarrhea, vomiting and high temperature.

What is rotavirus?

Faced with a similar clinical picture, doctors were at first perplexed: where did such a severe intestinal infection come from? What is it caused by? The answer to this question was discovered by Roberta Bishop, an infectious disease doctor from Australia. She took pieces of the mucous membrane of the duodenum of a child who had acute diarrhea for a biopsy. Under the microscope, in thin sections of this laboratory sample, viral particles of a characteristic shape were clearly visible - in the form of a wheel (in Latin - "mouth"). That's why the virus was called that! Entering the body, viruses penetrate the mucous membrane of the small intestine, destroying the villi of the epithelium, which disrupts the process of production of digestive enzymes. This causes diarrhea and vomiting.

Diarrhea is a symptom of infection!

With rotavirus, the stool, initially mushy, becomes abundant, yellow and increasingly liquid. Diarrhea lasts from 3 to 6 days. With severe diarrhea, the body loses fluid, potassium and sodium. This is very dangerous: the baby needs to be fed with pharmacy solutions for rehydration with mineral salts and glucose, giving 1-3 teaspoons every 5-7 minutes. Depending on the condition of the baby, it is possible to restore fluid loss at home or in a hospital - according to the doctor's decision!

Source: Fotolia

Intestinal flu is what people call rotavirus infection. And all because the first symptoms of the disease resemble a cold or the flu: high temperature and runny nose.

Incubation period of intestinal flu

The interval from the moment of infection of the child to the appearance of the first signs of the disease is usually short: from one to four days. During this time, rotaviruses penetrate through the mucous membrane of the duodenum and small intestine. Pathogens change their work so that instead of absorbing liquid and nutrients, the intestine begins to pump out water and salts from the body.

Everything begins suddenly - with a sharp rise in temperature to 39°C and higher. The child becomes lethargic, loses interest in playing, refuses food, complains of stomach pain. He is nauseous, repeated or repeated vomiting may occur. Then diarrhea begins (up to 20 times a day).

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How long does intestinal flu last?

As a rule, on the second day, the condition begins to improve, vomiting stops, although abdominal pain and diarrhea may bother you for a few more days (from 3 to 7). With proper treatment and timely assistance, the body produces a sufficient amount of secretory immunoglobulin IgA, which successfully copes with the virus.

Most pathogens are "stamped" during the first week of the illness, but even on the tenth and even the fifteenth day, viruses are released from the intestines in very large numbers. Only by the end of the month, the body is completely freed from microscopic interventions and the patient ceases to be dangerous to others. Thus, rotavirus is very contagious. Observe quarantine so that none of your family members get infected from a sick baby. Keep your hands and clothes clean, boil dishes and cutlery used by a sick child at this time, do daily wet cleaning, and then, most likely, no one in the family will get sick.

Source: Fotolia

How the virus is transmitted

This disease has its own age preferences. It occurs infrequently in babies in the first months of life: antibodies received from mom protect babies. And they grow such a crumb almost in sterile conditions.

But in six months everything changes. The immunity transferred by the mother to the child is no longer enough to protect against rotaviruses, and the child's field of activity and his contacts expand: he begins to crawl on the floor, dirty his hands... However, if someone from the family has contracted this disease in an acute form, a child younger than 6 months may well be infected by it.

And remember: pathogens can "sit" on anything - unwashed palms, fruit, handrails in public transport.

Ways of infection

Rotavirus is widespread throughout the world and is transmitted exclusively from person to person by the fecal-oral route — that is, it is a typical "disease of dirty hands." The probability of infection increases in the summer and especially at the sea, since frequent snacks on the beach, inability to wash hands in time and contact with a large number of people are risk factors for intestinal infection.

Now the family of rotaviruses has been studied in detail. The researchers included several structurally similar species in it. Viruses that belong to them cause trouble not only to people, but also to birds and mammals. Fortunately, a person cannot get infected from a sick animal, but a parrot or a cat is quite capable of picking up the virus from a child if this infection is detected. And to the baby itself, it is most often transmitted from other children or adults, who, as a rule, carry this disease in a mild form, on their feet. You will think, the stomach is a little upset! Is it worth giving importance to it if everything happened in a day?

Source: Burda Media

Symptoms of rotavirus infection

A sudden deterioration of the child's condition is typical for rotavirus infection.

• The main symptom of any intestinal infection that always appears is diarrhea.
• The child is nauseous and begins to vomit - in mild cases, this may not happen.
• Pain in the abdomen, in the area of ​​the navel or higher, as well as a characteristic "humming".
• Increase in body temperature up to 38-39 degrees.
• hematous urine (especially with the development of dehydration) and light watery stool without mucus and blood, which are similar to the symptoms of hepatitis (jaundice).
• Such symptoms as runny nose, cough, sore throat are often observed.
• Vomiting, diarrhea, fever and, as a result, dehydration are the main symptoms of intestinal flu.

But! A similar picture can occur with other diseases, but it is rotavirus that causes severe diarrhea.

Rotavirus in children and adults

Both a child of any age and an adult can become infected, and life-long immunity to the microbe is not developed. However, the amount of antibodies in the blood increases with each subsequent infection. Manifestations of rotavirus infection in children are more severe, the younger the age, and also because the acidity of the gastric juice, which overcomes a large number of viruses, is insufficient in children. Infection specialists claim that by the age of 5, almost all children have at least once met rotavirus and got sick with this intestinal infection, which means that the little organism already has antibodies to the virus and the next time it will bear the disease more easily.

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Treatment

It would be correct to consult a doctor, at least, to confirm the diagnosis and control on his part. There is no cure for rotavirus infection. In principle, the body almost always copes with the problem itself, and the disease passes without consequences, but the main danger is the risk of dehydration and loss of vital mineral salts (potassium, sodium, etc.), especially in children.

Starvation. With rotavirus (as, however, with any intestinal infection), there is no appetite, and hunger is one of the treatment methods. Do not feed the baby for at least a day after the onset of the disease.

Desoldering. How correctly you will hydrate the child depends on his condition and even his life, since dehydration is critically dangerous for children.

• Let's drink a salt solution, you can buy a ready-made powder in a pharmacy or prepare it yourself (for 1 liter of water - 2 tablespoons of sugar and ½ teaspoon of salt).
• In addition, let him drink dried fruit compote, fruit juice, weak tea - whatever he agrees to.
• Milk and dairy products should not be offered - with rotavirus infection, temporary lactose insufficiency develops.

Absorbents. Activated carbon is one of the most common sorbents without any contraindications. But you need a lot of it: dissolve 1 g of coal in water based on 1 kg of the baby's weight. You can use enterosgel, smecta and other sorbents approved for children.

Antibiotics are not used to treat rotavirus infection. In the event of a viral infection, antibiotics are not only useless (they are powerless against viruses), but also harmful, as they further disrupt the balance of the microflora.

Source: Fotolia

Diet

The stomach and intestines need a food break to fight viruses and restore impaired functions — and this means at least 4-6 hours of food unloading. Starving a child is useful, but being thirsty is extremely harmful, so water it with saline solutions. When the food break is over, switch to a special diet.

Offer breast milk or formula to a child up to a year old with the same intervals between feedings as before the illness. Only a one-time portion should be reduced by two times compared to the norm.

Exclude whole milk, sweets, mashed potatoes, raw vegetables and fruits for another 10 days. The baby lost a lot of weight after the illness, but still eats without appetite? While he eats less than he should, feed him more often than before. Nothing, that for this you will have to introduce an additional meal: you will cancel it when the child's appetite is restored.

On the 5-7th day of illness, the child can return to his usual diet. But it should not contain too many carbohydrates and vegetable fiber!

You should fight the temperature with rotavirus in the same way as with ARVI. At a temperature above 38,5, give the patient a medicine based on ibuprofen in a dosage according to the age category. if the temperature does not go astray and at the same time rises, call an ambulance.

When a doctor's help is extremely necessary

Be sure to call an ambulance or a pediatrician if:

• A child under the age of 2 fell ill
• There was blood or mucus in the stool
• Vomiting continues for more than a day
• It is not possible to hydrate the child or there are signs of dehydration
• There is no improvement in the condition on the second day, or there are signs of dangerous infections - botulism (slurred speech, double vision) or salmonellosis (stiffness and pain in the calf muscles), rash.

A severe form of rotavirus infection requires careful correction of fluid and salt loss. If adequate treatment is not started, complications from the cardiovascular and metabolic systems may appear.

Source: Burda Media

Prevention of intestinal flu and vaccination

There is only one way to protect the child from meeting with rotaviruses - always wash hands after a walk, before eating, when the child has sat on the potty. It is necessary to teach the baby to cleanliness from an early age. And you can't take food from someone else's plate, drink from the same cup or the neck of the same bottle with another.

All people get rotavirus infection at least once in their lives. Effective and harmless vaccines have been developed to prevent a severe form of the disease in children. The vaccine is administered orally (through the mouth) twice with an interval of at least a month. Children are vaccinated from the age of one and a half months so that the child receives two doses by noon.