Abstract
Rotavirus A species (RVA) is the leading cause of severe diarrhea among children in both developed and developing countries. Among different RVA G types, humans are most commonly infected with G1, G2, G3, G4 and G9. During 2003–2004, G3 rotavirus termed as “new variant G3” emerged in Japan that later disseminated to multiple countries across the world. Although G3 rotaviruses are now commonly detected globally, they have been rarely reported from Pakistan. We investigated the genetic diversity of G3 strains responsible RVA gastroenteritis in children hospitalized in Rawalpindi, Pakistan during 2014. G3P[8] (18.3%; n = 24) was detected as the most common genotype causing majority of infections in children less than 06 months. Phylogenetic analysis of Pakistani G3 strains showed high amino acid similarity to “new variant G3” and G3 strains reported from China, Russia, USA, Japan, Belgium and Hungary during 2007–2012. Pakistani G3 strains belonged to lineage 3 within sub-lineage 3d, containing an extra N-linked glycosylation site compared to the G3 strain of RotaTeqTM. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the molecular epidemiology of G3 rotavirus strains from Pakistan and calls for immediate response measures to introduce RV vaccine in the routine immunization program of the country on priority.
Highlights
Rotavirus is the most common etiologic agent of severe diarrhea in infants and children worldwide causing approximately 0.2 million deaths annually [1]
Infections with G3 were found throughout the year and the most common clinical signs and symptoms of children infected with G3 included dehydration (100%), vomiting and diarrhea
In a 2009 study conducted by Day et al [41] in Bangladesh, 2.6% of the total 917 enrolled patients were detected positive for G3 rotavirus
Summary
Rotavirus is the most common etiologic agent of severe diarrhea in infants and children worldwide causing approximately 0.2 million deaths annually [1]. Being a member of Reoviridae family, it has a unique genome comprising 11 segments of double stranded RNA which encode six structural (VP1-VP4, VP6, VP7) and six non-structural proteins (NSP1-NSP6) [2]. Among the nine recognized and one proposed rotavirus species (RVA—RVI and RVJ respectively) [3,4] species A, B, C and H are known to infect humans [5] while RVA cause majority of infections [6]. RVA is classified into G and P genotypes based on their outer capsid proteins VP7 and VP4 respectively and 35 G-types and 50 P-types have been identified so far [3,7,8].
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