Rotavirus Vaccines

Abstract

There are two candidate rotavirus vaccines that consist of a combination of four or more viral strains. Each of the two candidate vaccines is made by genetically reassorting one animal rotavirus strain (i.e., simian or bovine) with each of several human rotavirus strains. The resultant reassortant strains retain the attenuated virulence characteristics of the animal strains and express one of the genes that encode the proteins that determine human rotavirus serotype. It is estimated that the simian × human reassortant rotavirus vaccine could be licensed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and recommended for universal use in all infants by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in 1998. Strategies used to formulate, construct, and combine animal × human rotavirus reassortant vaccines as well as selected aspects of rotavirus immunology, molecular biology, and pathogenesis will be described in this chapter. Since the rotavirus vaccine is itself a multivalent combination vaccine, issues related to the interactions among different serotype viruses will be discussed.KeywordsOral Poliovirus VaccineReassortant VaccineThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.