Rotavirus diarrhea manifestations and symptoms

Everyone may have diarrhea at some time or another, but if it is caused by a virus, it is not so easy to cure. The symptoms of rotavirus diarrhea have always been very prominent, especially children are more susceptible to rotavirus diarrhea. Parents should increase their awareness of rotavirus diarrhea and provide a safer living environment for their babies and themselves.

1. Symptoms of rotavirus diarrhea

One reason is that rotavirus infection increases the risk of intussusception in children.

Second, rotavirus enteritis often has symptoms such as vomiting and abdominal distension.

2. Transmission of rotavirus diarrhea

Because rotavirus is highly contagious, it can survive outside the body for several hours to several months, and can survive longer in low temperature environments. In the feces of patients in the acute phase, the number of viruses contained in every gram of feces exceeds 100 billion, and children can excrete the virus before the onset of symptoms, and the virus can continue until 10 days after the onset of symptoms, so it is easy to spread between families and kindergartens.

Newborns often have no symptoms or very mild symptoms after infection because they have relatively high levels of antibodies brought from their mothers. However, premature babies are an exception because they do not obtain enough antibodies and are at a higher risk of developing severe symptoms than full-term babies. Severe cases mainly occur in children between 3 and 24 months old, and only about 25% of severe cases occur after the age of 2. Most children will be infected multiple times, but the symptoms of the first infection are often more severe than subsequent infections, which may be milder or even asymptomatic, probably because the first infection produces immune protection.

Symptoms of rotavirus diarrhea

When infected with rotavirus, symptoms do not appear immediately. During the incubation period of 1-7 days, the child may not show any symptoms. Symptoms will appear once the incubation period is over, and the initial manifestations are often fever and vomiting. About half of the children will have a fever, but most of them are low-grade fevers. However, about 1/3 of the children will have a fever above 39 degrees. 80-90% of the children will vomit. After these symptoms persist for 1-2 days, watery stools will begin to appear, which may be 10-20 times a day. Diarrhea usually lasts 3-8 days.