Rotavirus infection, what tests to take. Methods for diagnosing rotavirus infection, rapid test at home

Rotovirus infection is an infectious disease caused by rotaviruses. It is characterized by an acute onset, with the addition of symptoms of gastroenteritis and enteritis together with the manifestation of respiratory syndrome in the first days of the disease. Since pathogens infect the tissues of the small intestine, causing symptoms of disorders, it is often difficult to recognize rotavirus, so experts recommend getting tested for rotavirus infection.

Does your child get sick often?

Your child constantly sick?
A week in kindergarten (school), two weeks at home on sick leave?

Many factors are to blame for this. From bad ecology to weakening the immune system with ANTI-VIRAL DRUGS!
Yes, yes, you heard right! By feeding your child powerful synthetic drugs, you sometimes cause more harm to the little organism.

In order to radically change the situation, it is necessary not to destroy the immune system, but to HELP IT...

Routes of entry of rotavirus into the human body

There are several options for rotavirus to enter the body:

• Fecal-oral route: involves neglecting hygiene rules after going to the toilet;
• Due to drinking water without prior purification or boiling;
• After eating unwashed vegetables, berries or fruits;
• From an infected person.

Rotavirus infection spreads quite quickly and can affect a large number of people in the shortest possible time. The disease occurs more often in young children under the age of five, which can be picked up in child care institutions.

Symptoms, as a rule, without specific treatment, disappear after 5 - 7 days from the moment of its manifestation. But despite this, the infection can be dangerous for people with a low immune system and a weak body. Babies are also at risk of developing dehydration, which without timely treatment and help can have fatal consequences. Therefore, it is impossible to do without an appropriate analysis for rotavirus.

Rotavirus infection is similar in clinical manifestations to various diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, which prevents the determination of the correct diagnosis only by the existing symptoms. Most often, specialists prescribe a stool test for rotavirus at the very beginning of the disease. During this period, the virus is most active and easily detected.

What symptoms would be a reason to get tested for rotavirus infection?

After rotavirus infects the human body, an asymptomatic period (incubation) begins, lasting from 24 hours to 5 days.

The onset of the disease is manifested by an increase in temperature to 38.5 - 40 degrees with characteristic symptoms:

• Painful sensations in the abdominal area;
• Vomiting about four times a day (sometimes in the morning, before meals);
• No appetite;
• Lethargy and weakness;

Further, signs of acute diarrhea develop with profuse, watery, yellowish stools that have a sour odor. During the period of the most detected manifestation of the infection, the stool comes out with admixtures of mucous secretions and blood elements. With excessively frequent bowel movements, the patient develops acute dehydration, which can cause death. Therefore, at the first symptoms of the disease, you should immediately seek medical help.

Why is my child's immune system weakened?

Many people are familiar with these situations:

• As soon as the cold season begins - your child is bound to get sick, and then the whole family...
• It seems that you buy expensive drugs, but they only work while you drink them, and after a week or two baby gets sick again...
• Are you worried that your child's immune system is weak, very often illnesses take precedence over health...
• You are afraid of every sneeze or cough...

  It is necessary to strengthen YOUR CHILD'S IMMUNITY!

The main symptoms of dehydration are loss of consciousness or a state of confusion, often a convulsive syndrome occurs.

With rotavirus infection, symptoms characteristic of respiratory diseases appear:

• Nasal congestion;
• Sore throat when swallowing;
• Hyperemia of the eyes and throat.

After five to seven days, all manifestations of the disease disappear and an improvement in general condition is noted. Having been ill once, a person develops antibodies to the virus, which in the future will prevent such an acute course when the body is infected with rotavirus.

Consequently, having had this disease in childhood, the symptoms in an adult will differ significantly. The clinical picture manifests itself in a single loose stool and an increase in temperature to subfebrile. For adult patients, the infectious disease is not life-threatening, but such patients become spreaders of rotavirus.

Time for rotavirus testing

A stool test is performed for rotavirus infection within the first two to four days from the moment the symptomatic picture appears. During this period, the highest concentration of the pathogen in the feces is observed.

After five days of illness, the amount of the viral agent in the stool gradually decreases and a few days after the symptoms disappear completely. If you take tests after eight to nine days from the onset of the disease, you will not be able to detect the infectious agent, since during this period its concentration is too low.

How to properly prepare and collect tests to detect rotavirus infection?

To detect rotavirus in the patient’s body, a stool test is most often necessary. This laboratory test does not require specific preparation; before collecting the material, it is enough to make sure that the day before there was no treatment with enemas, suppositories for rectal use and laxatives.

Rules for collecting stool for research:

• Before collecting the material, you should avoid its contact with the toilet and urine, otherwise the result will be incorrect;
• The amount of material for a full study will need from two to five grams;
• You should purchase a special container for placing and transporting feces at the pharmacy;
• In infants, tests are collected from a diaper using a sterile stick;
• The collected material must be sent to the laboratory in the morning;
• It is allowed to store the container in the refrigerator for no more than two hours.

Not only a stool test can confirm the presence of rotavirus infection in the patient’s body. Diagnosis is made by collecting urine or vomit samples. Urine examination reveals proteinuria, hematuria and a high concentration of leukocytes.

Examination of stool will help identify the antigen of the rotavirus species VP6, which belongs to group A. In the absence of rotavirus in the test material, the diagnostic answer is negative; if present, the result is positive.

To detect rotavirus, ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent test) or PCR (polymerase chain reaction) are used. In some cases, the results of the diagnosis may be false, so the doctor will order the tests to be retaken.

The results of a stool test for rotavirus infection will be known after 24 hours, after which the treating specialist can announce the diagnosis to the patient. Sometimes you have to wait up to five days for answers, depending on the diagnostic method and laboratory equipment conditions. Also today there are rapid tests, with which the analyzes will be ready after 15-20 minutes, however, this method is expensive and therefore is used in emergency cases.

Therapeutic measures are prescribed immediately at the first symptoms, but when a pathogen is identified in the human body, they can be adjusted.

This might be interesting:

If a child is constantly sick, his immune system DOES NOT WORK!

To clarify the diagnosis, the doctor may ask for a stool test for rotavirus. This is done on days 3-5 of illness. Feces should be immediately placed in a sterile container.

A dangerous disease that most often affects children is rotavirus. It affects children from 6 months to 12 years, whose immune system is still poorly developed.

The incubation period of rotavirus infection, or, as it is also called, intestinal flu, is only 2 days, after which signs of the disease appear.

1. My stomach hurts.
2. A child or adult begins to vomit repeatedly.
3. The patient complains of weakness, he is pale, sometimes has a runny nose and sore throat.
4. He has diarrhea, watery stools with a characteristic sour odor.

Symptoms of the disease do not last long, no more than 4-7 days, after which the patient recovers. If an adult gets sick, the disease is milder: his appetite decreases, his temperature rises slightly, and he may have diarrhea. But he is a carrier of the virus, so he can easily infect other family members.

The symptoms of the disease are easy to confuse with banal poisoning, salmonellosis and other diseases. Doctors cannot treat a patient until they make an accurate diagnosis. This can be done by getting tested for rotavirus infection.

Diagnosis of the disease

To make sure that they have not made a mistake in the diagnosis, doctors ask the patient to be tested for rotavirus. It includes 3 components. First of all, this is a blood test. It can indicate the presence of a virus in the body if it shows moderate leukocytosis, which is replaced by leukopenia. The patient must also undergo a urine test. But the most important test, without a doubt, is a stool test for rotavirus. The maximum number of microorganisms in feces occurs on the 3-5th day of illness, then you should take a stool test, which will be the most reliable.

How to get tested

How to properly take a stool test so that it shows a true result:

1. The day before taking a stool test, you should not take laxatives, do an enema, or use rectal suppositories.
2. Feces should be immediately placed in a sterile container. It should not be allowed to come into contact with other objects, such as a toilet or potty. No urine should come into contact with it. You should not even use toilet paper, otherwise the result will not be accurate. You need to collect no more than 2 g of feces.
3. Immediately after collecting material for stool analysis, it must be submitted to the laboratory. It should take no more than 3 hours. If you can’t immediately take it to the hospital, it can stay at home for a while, but in the refrigerator.
4. On the jar, write the first and last name of the person who took the stool test, the date and time when the material was collected.

Results

The results will be ready the next day. You can find out whether a person really has this infection by identifying the rotavirus antigen VP6. But an incorrect result, both false positive and false negative, is also possible. If the doctor has doubts, he may ask you to be tested for infection again. If the test result is negative, this indicates that the patient has another disease with similar symptoms. Sometimes a child suffers from both diarrhea and ARVI at the same time, and doctors believe that it is rotavirus. The result of tests collected 8 or more days after the onset of the disease will also be negative, because the concentration of the virus by that time is significantly reduced. Therefore, you need to take tests at the beginning of the disease.

Intestinal infections of a child: rotavirus

Against the background of complete health, the child suddenly begins to have an acute intestinal disorder: vomiting, loose stools and fever. Most likely, this is an intestinal infection - rotavirus. How to treat a child? Pediatrician Inna Danilova advises.

The causative agent of the disease, rotavirus, multiplies in the gastrointestinal tract. Usually, at high temperatures, symptoms of gastroenteritis appear. This is, first of all, vomiting; it can be uncontrollable, sometimes preventing the baby from even breathing. If the child is very small, an infant, this symptom may manifest itself in the form of excessive regurgitation. In older children, vomiting may be accompanied by pain in the abdominal area. A viral infection is characterized by intoxication of the patient’s body, which manifests itself in lethargy, weakness, malaise and lack of appetite. There is also a sharp deterioration in stool with damage to the mucous membrane of the small intestine - the stool becomes watery and profuse.

There is one nuance in the course of rotavirus infection that parents should know. Doctors explain: the virus multiplies in the walls of the small intestine, the cells of which have villi that help digest, primarily carbohydrates; The rotavirus ruptures these villi and peels them off from the mucosal cells, as a result of which polyenzymatic deficiency develops, and above all, the normal process of digestion of milk sugar is disrupted, because the required amount of lactase enzymes is reduced. This is very important for breastfed babies; in almost 100% of cases they develop lactase deficiency. In other words: the body does not accept the only possible food - mother's milk.

Unfortunately, this consequence of the virus is much more difficult to combat than the clinical manifestations of the infection: uncontrollable vomiting and copious stools with large losses of water, electrolytes, sugars and salts. Dehydration, especially in a young child, can happen very quickly. Often, one hour is enough for the child’s condition to deteriorate sharply if the necessary measures are not taken in time.

There are five groups of viruses (A, B, C, D, E). Most often, children suffer from group A virus, but it is almost impossible to clinically distinguish one group from another. Typically, specialists are interested in this from an epidemiological point of view when it is necessary to examine children during large outbreaks of the disease in hospitals and maternity hospitals. It is quite easy to diagnose rotavirus infection, but one should also keep in mind the possibility of bacterial intestinal infections, which sometimes occur with a similar symptom complex (for example, salmonellosis). Therefore, infectious disease specialists recommend that if a child has vomiting and loose stools, be sure to take a stool test for the intestinal group.

If, when examining a child against the background of intestinal dysfunction, slight nasal congestion, slight redness of the pharynx, and coughing are revealed, then these symptoms only confirm the presence of rotavirus infection. The duration of the disease is about a week. On the 5th–7th day, a clinical improvement in the condition of the sick child is usually detected.

At the first symptoms of rotavirus infection, you should call a doctor. Try to calm the child down and give him plenty of clean water, even in very small portions.

How to avoid?

Many parents want to know where and how infection usually occurs in order to avoid risk and protect their child from such danger. This is very problematic because, in general, the level of organization of sanitary and epidemiological protection in our country is quite low. The virus can be infected through the fecal-oral route, i.e. through dirty hands, unwashed fruits and vegetables, untreated water - these are the most common ways. However, studies conducted in hospitals have shown that the infection can also be contracted through airborne droplets.

As practice shows, susceptibility to this virus is very high: about 70% of children become infected upon contact. It has been noticed that people get sick more often in the autumn and winter, because rotavirus loves the cold. During cold spells, outbreaks of diseases are observed even in summer.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to completely protect a child from rotavirus infection. The usual generally accepted rules of personal and home hygiene cannot be absolute guarantees of health. Rotavirus is very resistant even during sanitary treatment and is not afraid of most cleaning products. Moreover, an adult or child who has had it can remain a carrier of the infection for about another month, and sometimes longer.

Infants suffer the most severe infection. In addition, dehydration can occur very quickly in them - within an hour to an hour and a half after the onset of vomiting and diarrhea. Each new intestinal disorder caused by rotavirus is much easier. However, the statistics are disappointing: sooner or later, every person becomes a victim of the insidious rotavirus. I can’t help but remember the faded, old stand in the children’s clinic, which never tires of reminding everyone: “Cleanliness is the key to health!”

In terms of the frequency of diseases, rotavirus infection ranks second after ARVI. The causative agent of the disease got its name from the Latin word rota - “wheel”, because viral particles under an electron microscope look like small wheels with a wide “hub”, twenty short “spokes” and a circular rim.

Rotaviruses on various environmental objects remain viable from 10–15 days to 1 month. (depending on temperature and humidity), in feces - up to 7 months. Mostly children under the age of 1 year are affected, less often – up to 6 years; In adults, the disease is quite rare - in isolated cases.

What to feed?

We have already said that rotavirus infection is accompanied by lactase deficiency - the inability of small intestinal enzymes to break down milk sugar. Therefore, during the acute phase of infection, it is not advisable for a child to consume dairy products.

Most often, all enzyme functions are gradually restored. But sometimes there are cases of acute secondary lactase deficiency, when the baby even has to be weaned from the breast due to his inability to absorb mother's milk. However, to help mothers, pharmacies have a synthesized lactase enzyme, which, after consultation with a pediatrician, can be given to the child along with breastfeeding. This way you will avoid interrupting breastfeeding, which is dangerous to your baby’s health.

All foods that cause fermentation in the intestines should be immediately excluded from the child’s diet: fruits, juices (the favorite drink of patients), fruit puree. When the peak of the disease has passed, it will be possible to give thin porridge in water with a small addition of milk and liquid mashed potatoes. Cranked meat will also be acceptable.

The child suddenly developed uncontrollable vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, headache, and fever. What to do? Of course, consult a doctor! After all, the worst thing is dehydration, which occurs especially quickly in infants.

Call emergency child care immediately.

While the ambulance is on the way, take care that the child’s body does not lose precious moisture. Vomiting leaves a large amount of electrolytes and mineral salts. Therefore, despite the urge to vomit, let your child drink as much as possible. Even if the baby resists, persistently try to give him something to drink from a teaspoon, pipette or syringe. A small amount of liquid that can enter the stomach will prevent the body from quickly losing water, since it will be absorbed very quickly. You can offer your child lightly brewed, very sweet tea with a small amount of table salt, imperceptible to the taste, but replenishing (albeit in small quantities) the salt lost by the body.

As for medications, you can give your child a rehydron solution. This powder contains all the necessary elements, mineral salts and vitamins to support the body at such a critical moment. Take one sachet per liter of water for adult children and a quarter of a sachet per bottle for a baby. The baby should be placed on its side so that it does not choke on the vomit.

Give your child some sorbent to drink (activated carbon or one of the modern sorbents). Sorbents absorb toxins that are caused by any infection, and a certain amount of bubbling liquid that forms in the gastrointestinal tract due to infection.

You should definitely take a long break from feeding (6–8–12 hours), since solid food in any form will cause a gag reflex.

If the ambulance that arrives is going to take you and your child to the hospital, it means that, most likely, more serious means are needed to combat dehydration. If the doctor assessed your condition as satisfactory and allowed you to stay at home, you should continue the treatment you started and follow the doctor’s recommendations.

Two to three days later, after the infectious storm in the gastrointestinal tract has subsided and the child’s condition begins to improve, probiotics should be added to the treatment. This must be done in order to repopulate the child’s intestines with beneficial bacteria.

Do I need to be tested for rotavirus infection? In what cases is it necessary and when is it not necessary to do a stool test?

If all the symptoms of an intestinal infection are present, this does not mean that you need to immediately do a stool test to accurately identify the pathogen.

Fasting and drinking plenty of fluids are sufficient conditions to cure most cases of such infections.

But, of course, there are exceptions when a stool analysis will help make a correct diagnosis and prescribe additional treatment.

To understand this, you need to become more familiar with the culprits of intestinal infections.

What is rotavirus?

Rotaviruses are a group of viruses that cause rotavirus infection. This is one of the types of intestinal infection, which is also called intestinal flu.

Most intestinal infections in children are caused by rotaviruses. According to statistics, they are responsible for 25% of gastroenteritis (inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach and small intestine) in children under one year of age, 60% - at the age of 1 - 3 years, and 40% - at the age of 4 - 6 years.

It is believed that before the age of 5, every child experiences rotavirus infection at least once.

When confronted with rotavirus, the body produces immunity, so each subsequent infection is easier than the previous one.

This is why the virus is especially dangerous for children, whose bodies are experiencing its effects for the first time. For the same reason, in many countries children are vaccinated against rotavirus infection.

The virus gets its name from its dense shell, which gives it the appearance of a wheel (rota is Latin for “wheel”).

The infection was named intestinal flu due to the fact that intestinal syndrome is often combined with respiratory syndrome - the symptoms of ARVI appear.

Rotavirus infection often looks like a respiratory virus, but symptoms of poor digestion (dyspepsia), such as diarrhea and vomiting, should alert a competent pediatrician and help differentiate from ARVI.

The disease is infectious in nature, that is, it is contagious. The route of infection is usually nutritional – this is the name given to a group of causes related to nutrition.

The virus can enter the body through food, water, and unwashed hands. Any intestinal infection requires separate dishes for the sick, and for healthy people - thorough disinfection of the dishes and hand washing.

Therefore, the main method of prevention is reasonable hygiene. Reasonable - it means you need to wash your hands, but it is unnecessary to sterilize everything around the child, since this places the body (and its immune system) in a “greenhouse”, from which, when emerging, it turns out to be unadapted to the difficulties of the “big world”.

Diarrhea and vomiting due to rotavirus infection are a kind of protective reaction of the body, which has gotten into something bad, which it is trying with all its might to get rid of.

However, they also pose the main danger, which is the loss of fluids and salts by the body.

This is especially dangerous for children, since their body’s reserves of salts and fluids are small, and deficiency occurs much faster than in adults.

For example, the color of urine will indicate a deficiency - if it is light, then everything is in order, if it is dark (we are not talking about morning urine), then a deficiency of fluids can be assumed.

There are several stages of the disease. Incubation lasts from one to five days. The acute period is 3–7 days, but can be longer if the disease is severe.

After the acute phase is over, the body is still weakened and needs diet and rest for 4-5 days - the so-called recovery period.

Diagnosis and treatment

In many civilized countries, vaccinations against rotavirus infection are included in the mandatory calendar, and in third world countries, for example, on the African continent, intestinal infections are perhaps the main cause of child mortality.

Regardless of the cause (viruses or bacteria) that caused the intestinal infection, the disease can be treated at home in two main ways:

• hunger - the patient is unlikely to have an appetite, and it is necessary to listen to this signal from the body and not stuff him with broths “to reinforce his strength”;
• Drinking plenty of fluids will help replenish the deficiency of salts and fluids in the body. The pharmacy sells special rehydration salts, but mineral water, a decoction of dried fruits and other copious unsweetened drinks are quite suitable.

In the vast majority of cases, this is quite enough for a successful recovery! You can also use sorbents such as activated carbon and others.

What you should never do without taking a stool test to determine the type of infection is giving antibiotics, even if they have been tested by your ancestors to the fourth generation.

Antibiotics are powerless against viruses and will only undermine the body's defenses.

Drugs such as bacteriophages and eubiotics are completely harmless and cannot cause harm.

However, medical research shows that intestinal infections are not any faster or easier with them than without them.

That is, with a high degree of probability we can assume the uselessness of these types of drugs.

It is always necessary to consult a doctor and take a stool test if a child under one year old has diarrhea.

At an older age, the baby also needs to be shown to a doctor if, despite all efforts, the condition does not improve within 24 hours.

Diagnostics (mainly stool analysis, less often serological studies) is aimed at differentiating rotavirus infection from severe bacteriological infections such as cholera, salmonellosis and others. This will allow you to prescribe the right treatment, as well as prevent an epidemic.

A few grams of feces are needed for analysis. They should not come into contact with any other surfaces or substances - toilet, potty, urine, and so on.

It is best to use a special container from a pharmacy to collect the material - it is convenient and eliminates distortion of the results due to impurities.

As a rule, such an analysis is done in a hospital when the patient’s condition does not allow him to be treated at home according to the standard regimen.

Intestinal flu is a seasonal disease; the infection occurs between November and April.

In adult groups, if one person gets sick, then after 3 to 5 days others get sick, although single episodes are also possible.

However, the disease is much milder than in children, sometimes in the form of a mild intestinal disorder, and sometimes completely asymptomatic.

Rotavirus infection is a common disease; children are the main risk group. This name generally refers to all ailments that occur with symptoms of gastroenteritis in an acute form. Doctors also call it stomach flu because the virus attacks the intestines. Infection can occur through the fecal-oral route, which is why children are the main risk group. It is enough to put something unclean in your mouth or an object that has already been touched by a sick person to infect your body.

Diagnosing rotavirus infection is not difficult. As a rule, doctors prescribe a number of tests. But this is in the presence of symptoms required for this type of disease:

• nausea;
• problematic stool;
• vomiting.

Possible abdominal pain and rashes in the mouth.

Tests for diagnosing rotavirus infection

As mentioned above, rotavirus infection is a generic term. In order to make a specific diagnosis, doctors prescribe a series of diagnostic procedures, this is called a test for rotavirus infection. Blood, feces and urine are examined.

A blood test in the presence of this virus in the body demonstrates the following indicators: moderate leukocytosis, quickly giving way to leukopenia. Lymphocytosis and monocytosis also occur, ESR is within normal limits, but exceptions occur. It is impossible to give exact numerical indicators of the analysis, since the normal composition of blood is individual for everyone. Therefore, a doctor must look at the results in order to give competent advice.

Next comes a urine test; there is no need to prepare in any special way for the procedure, except that the urine should be placed in a special pharmaceutical container. The results of the disease display proteinuria, hematuria and leukocyturia, in some cases the appearance of casts is possible.

The final, but most basic thing is to analyze stool for the presence of rotavirus infection. Doctors prescribe it last, since the maximum number of virus microbes in the stool appears on the third to fifth day. This way you can study the infection much more efficiently and accurately. There are several important points that you need to be familiar with in order to correctly collect a sample for stool testing for rotavirus infection:

1. You should not use any medications, including rectal suppositories and laxatives, or do an enema the day before collecting stool.
2. Feces must be collected directly into a clean container so that it does not come into contact with external objects. It must be submitted to the laboratory a maximum of three hours after collection; during this time, the sample for analysis is best stored in the refrigerator.
3. To avoid errors, it is worth signing the container and indicating the date - this way you can be sure of the accuracy of the results.

During the peak development of rotavirus infection in the body, mucus and blood may be present in the stool. The results of the analysis, as a rule, are ready within a day and are promptly communicated to the patient or his doctor. According to the collected data on the condition of the body, treatment is prescribed.