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Gladys Chia
Chew Yu Mei
Yvonne Teo
Cornelyus Ng
Lau Leslie

26 September 2008

2:07:00 PM

Hello everyone, another 1 more month and we'll be back in school (:

Ok, me surviving in my Micro lab, will discuss ROTAVIRUS with you today.

What is rotavirus?
Rotavirus is a double-stranded RNA virus in the family of Reoviridae. It is usually the cause of severe diarrhea among infants and young children, and adults rarely get affected. After getting affected, immunity builds and the condition gets less severe.

There are 7 species of the virus, known as A,B,C,D,E,F and G. However, Rotavirus A is often the main causes of the infections. The transmittion route is most commonly, fecal-oral route via contaminated hands, surfaces, objects. Afterwhich, the virus will line the small intestine and produces enterotoxin that causes gastroenteritis resulting in severe diarrhea. If not treated immediately, death may occur due to dehydration.

Infected or not?
Rotavirus infection is often characterised by vomiting, watery diarrhea, mild fever. Once infected, there will be an incubation period of 2 days before the signs and symptoms starts surfacing.

How to detect?
Detection is usually through the stool sample of the patient. In my hospital, it is usually young children that is admitted with symptoms like severe dehydration and diarrhea. And in my lab, we uses the immunochromatographic kits for detection - RIDA® Quick Rotavirus

This kit is a quick test for the qualitative detection of rotaviruses in stool samples.

Procedures
1. 1ml of the extraction buffer Diluent is pipetted into a testube.
2. 50 mg or the tip of a applicator stick of the stool sample is added into the test tube.
3. Vortex the mixture to ensure thorough mixing and allow the sample to stand for 3 minutes.
4. After 3 minutes, use the pipette inside the kit to take the solution that separates from the stool sample and drop 4 drops into the sample well in the casette.
5. Read the result after 5 minutes.

Interpretation of Results
Positive: A red test band with blue control line. The colour intensity varies and is dependent on the quantity of antigens in the sample

Negative: Only the blue control bands appear

So what if positive?
The detection uses the method of immunoassay method of antigen detection. This is just a qualitative examination of the condition, so if a more detailed and quantifying test will be carried out in the other labs.The result is then reported back to the doctor and doctor will carry out appropriate actions to treat the condition of the patient.

How to prevent?
There are two vaccines available against the Rotavirus A infection; Rotarix by GSK and RotaTeq by Merck. They are taken orally and contain disabled live virus.

So get the children in your house vaccinated today (:

LESLIE

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