Margaret Conner and colleagues from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston Texas, tested samples obtained from hospitalized children with gastroenteritis and compared them with samples taken from children admitted with bronchiolitis or noninfectious, nonchronic conditions and healthy adults.
Rotavirus antigen was detected in the blood of 51 of 57 of children with rotavirus-positive stools, in 8 of 9 of children without diarrhea but with rotavirus-positive stools, in 2 of 17 children with bronchiolitis of unknown cause without gastroenteritis, and in 5 of 41 children with gastroenteritis but with rotavirus-negative stools. No antigen was found in the blood of any other groups. A further study of 11 children who had antigen in their blood and 9 who did not showed that infectious virus was detected in the blood of all 11 children who were antigen-positive children but in just 2 out of 9 children who were antigen-negative.
The authors conclude that in the children studied most of those infected with rotavirus also had infectious virus in their blood. The presence of virus in the blood appears to be directly related to the presence of antigen in the blood but is independent of the presence of diarrhea. The finding of infectious rotavirus in the blood suggests that the disease is not limited to just the intestine. A related perspective by David Candy discusses the study’s findings further.
Citation: Blutt SE, Matson DO, Crawford SE, Staat MA, Azimi P, et al. (2007) Rotavirus antigenemia in children is associated with viremia. PLoS Med 4(4): e121.
Andrew Hyde | alfa
Purdue cancer identity technology makes it easier to find a tumor's 'address'
16.11.2018 | Purdue University
Microgel powder fights infection and helps wounds heal
14.11.2018 | Michigan Technological University
Researchers at the University of New Hampshire have captured a difficult-to-view singular event involving "magnetic reconnection"--the process by which sparse particles and energy around Earth collide producing a quick but mighty explosion--in the Earth's magnetotail, the magnetic environment that trails behind the planet.
Magnetic reconnection has remained a bit of a mystery to scientists. They know it exists and have documented the effects that the energy explosions can...
Biochips have been developed at TU Wien (Vienna), on which tissue can be produced and examined. This allows supplying the tissue with different substances in a very controlled way.
Cultivating human cells in the Petri dish is not a big challenge today. Producing artificial tissue, however, permeated by fine blood vessels, is a much more...
Faster and secure data communication: This is the goal of a new joint project involving physicists from the University of Würzburg. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research funds the project with 14.8 million euro.
In our digital world data security and secure communication are becoming more and more important. Quantum communication is a promising approach to achieve...
On Saturday, 10 November 2018, the research icebreaker Polarstern will leave its homeport of Bremerhaven, bound for Cape Town, South Africa.
When choosing materials to make something, trade-offs need to be made between a host of properties, such as thickness, stiffness and weight. Depending on the application in question, finding just the right balance is the difference between success and failure
Now, a team of Penn Engineers has demonstrated a new material they call "nanocardboard," an ultrathin equivalent of corrugated paper cardboard. A square...
09.11.2018 | Event News
06.11.2018 | Event News
23.10.2018 | Event News
16.11.2018 | Health and Medicine
16.11.2018 | Life Sciences
16.11.2018 | Life Sciences