Clinical and epidemiological features of acute gastroenteritis associated with human rotavirus subgroups 1 and 2 in northern India.

Rotavirus was detected in 111 (15.9%) of 694 children who presented to our hospital with acute diarrhoea over a period of 45 months (1982-1985). Subgrouping for rotavirus was done on 87 children by ELISA using specific monoclonal antibodies to find out any differences in the epidemiology and clinical profile of the two subgroups. Twenty six (29.9%) were found to belong to subgroup 1 and 61 (70.1%) to subgroup 2. Diarrhoea, vomiting and fever were present in both the subgroups in the same frequency. However, the severity of diarrhoea was more in children having subgroup 2 infection. Rotavirus infection showed two peaks, one during the early months of summer and the other during the early months of winter of each year. During most of the study period, infection was predominantly with subgroup 2, except for a few months in 1983 and 1985 when a majority of children had infection with subgroup 1.