Viremia and extraintestinal infections in infants with rotavirus diarrhea.

OBJECTIVE

To test the hypothesis that viremia might be involved in infants with rotavirus (RV) diarrhea and extraintestinal infection.

METHODS

The genomes of RV in the plasma of 60 infants with RV diarrhea were detected with nested reverse transcriptase-PCR, which were also performed on the mononuclear cells from 14 of these infants showing abnormal myocardial and hepatic enzyme profiles. The RV genomes in the vital organs of 2 dead infants with RV infection were examined with in situ hybridization and indirect in situ PCR.

RESULTS

RV viremia was identified in 4 out of the 60 infants, and in one of the 4 cases, RV positive was affirmed in plasma in which RV sequence of serotype III without variation was found by partial sequencing of the PCR product, while the other 3 were found no RV positive mononuclear cells in the plasma samples. The genomes of rotavirus were found in the intestines, liver, lung and kidney of the 2 dead infants.

CONCLUSIONS

RV viremia is possible in young children requiring medical attention for RV diarrhea, and RV might migrate from intestines to other organs during viremia.