The current status of the rotavirus vaccine

The US just licensed of an oral tetravalent rhesus reassortant vaccine for routine immunization of infants against rotavirus. The virus was first identified 25 years ago and is now recognized to be the most common single cause of severe diarrhea throughout the world. Most children suffer at least one infection and reinfection is common. Studies of natural immunity show that breastfeeding may merely delay onset of primary infection and that maternal immunity has little effect-especially in developing countries where onset in early infancy is common. Immunity, furthermore, appears to be serotype-specific. Early attempts to develop a vaccine focused on animal forms of rotavirus. More recent efforts have created human-animal reassortants that have been far more successful.