“Nine out of ten get sick”: doctors spoke about the dangers of rotavirus

Intestinal flu, or, scientifically, rotavirus, is a very common disease for spring. The patient is haunted by high fever, severe weakness, nausea and diarrhea. Unpleasant symptoms can last from several days to two weeks, and the patient himself is extremely contagious to others even a month after recovery. How to distinguish an insidious virus from ordinary food poisoning? Who is at risk and how does infection occur? Important questions about rotavirus infection “MK” answered gastroenterologists.

Everyone has encountered an “ugly” infection at least once in their life. Most often it is faced by children.

“Children may be exposed to rotavirus two to five times in their lives. They are more susceptible to infections due to their mobility and active lifestyle,” says Svetlana Vlasova, a gastroenterologist, nutritionist, therapist at the Open Clinic.

In everyday life, it is believed that rotavirus is a disease of dirty hands. After all, this follows even from the name of the disease.

Doctors say it’s a myth inside and out. Even the name of the infection has nothing to do with the mouth.

– The name rotavirus infection takes from the Greek word “rota” – wheel. Under a microscope, viral particles look like a wheel. There is a misconception that this infection is transmitted only through dirty hands. In fact, it has several transmission paths. The most dangerous is by airborne droplets. The infection is highly contagious. A child needs very few viral particles to become infected. Of the ten children in contact with each other, nine, as a rule, become infected, says Vlasova.

As Svetlana Vlasova said, rotavirus can be recognized by three main symptoms. These are high fever, runny nose and cough, as well as diarrhea and vomiting. The combination of these symptoms gives doctors the ability to make an accurate diagnosis.

Rotavirus is a seasonal infection. Most outbreaks occur in winter. But due to the development of tourism, seasonality began to fade, so now you can get infected with rotavirus at any time.

“The peak of the disease in Russia falls on the cold season due to the overcrowding of children’s groups,” adds Olga Torozova, a gastroenterologist and therapist at the CDC on Presnya. – So most often it is the child who brings the disease home.

Another dangerous periods in terms of the risk of infection are March-April and August-October. This is the holiday season, when Russians bring the virus home from resorts.

The most contagious patient with rotavirus remains during the acute stage of the disease.

– The peak of virus isolation is the middle of the disease and another four to five days after the person feels well. But a person can remain a source of rotavirus excretion for up to thirty days. Staying healthy, he can continue to infect people around him, explains Olga Torozova.

The incubation period for rotavirus is insidious – from 12 hours to 7 days. That is, you can feel unwell and the first symptoms can be both on the same day after contact with the sick person, and after a week.

Rotavirus infection is very resistant to environmental adversity. So, in water, the virus can live up to two months, in soil and on surfaces – up to a month. On the hands of a person, the infection will live for four to six hours. And on food – up to a day or more. So all objects around us may well become a source of infection.

But how to distinguish an insidious tenacious infection from a banal food poisoning? How to understand who is to blame – white at the station or a virus particle in the form of a wheel?

– With food poisoning, there is no runny nose and cough. This is the main difference, – emphasizes Svetlana Vlasova.

Another feature of rotavirus is unstable immunity. More precisely, after an illness, protection in the body is produced only to one specific strain. And there are many of them.

– The virus is trying to somehow protect itself from us, so from time to time it changes its antigenic composition. Having been ill with one strain of rotavirus, you can get sick with another in a week, explains Olga Torozova.

However, you can get vaccinated against rotavirus. But it is not included in the preventive vaccination calendar. It is best to vaccinate young children under two years of age. This is a good way to protect your baby from dehydration in case of illness.

How can adults protect themselves? Doctors advise, first of all, to abandon the purchase of products by weight and replace them with goods in individual packaging. Unwashed vegetables and fruits are taboo. The main source of the virus is water. Moreover, bottled water is also not a guarantee against infection. Better to boil it.

Is it possible to do without calling a doctor if infected with rotavirus? Doctors warn: if a child falls ill, especially up to two years old, the doctor should be called immediately, on the first day of illness. Otherwise, there is a risk of formidable complications, the main of which is dehydration. Elderly people and pregnant women are also at particular risk.

“If there is a high temperature, a sharp pain in the abdomen and vomiting that cannot be stopped by anything, there is a risk of dehydration,” Olga Torozova warns.