Rotavirus Epidemic in Adults

Abstract

To the Editor: There is strong evidence that a reovirus-like agent,¹ usually referred to as rotavirus,² is a major cause of nonbacterial gastroenteritis in infants and children in many parts of the world.³ The role of rotavirus in gastroenteritis in adults, however, is still poorly understood. Middleton et al.⁴ demonstrated with a volunteer experiment that rotavirus is capable of infecting adults. Kapikian et al.⁵ studied parents of infected children and found, in 13 out of 40 cases, a fourfold or greater rise in rotavirus serum complement-fixation antibody titers. Only three parents, however, had clinical symptoms, and in only one . . .