Background: Acute gastroenteritis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among children in developing countries. Rotaviruses are recognized as the most common etiologic factors of gastroenteritis. In this study, we determined the epidemiologic features, clinical symptoms and molecular structure of rotavirus VP4(P) genotypes in children with acute diarrhea in Bahrami Hospital in Tehran Iran, during 2009 for justifying the routine use of rotavirus vaccines in children.

Methods: One hundred fifty fecal samples from 150 children with acute diarrhea in Bahrami Pediatric Hospital in Tehran, Iran were collected from January to December 2009. The patients’ mean age was 20.90+18.19 years (ranging from 1 month to 14 years). Fecal samples were transported on ice to the laboratory of virology department of Pasture Institute of Iran. The demographic and clinical data for each case were entered in an author-devised questionnaire. Group A rotavirus was detected by dsRNA-PAGE. Subsequently, rotavirus genotyping (VP4) was performed by semi-nested multiple RT-PCR and the phylogenetic tree of the Rotavirus nucleotides was constructed. The data were analyzed by statistical tests including Wilcoxon signed and Mann-Whitney U.

Results: Rotavirus was isolated in 19.3% of the samples, more than 90% of which had long RNA patterns. The predominant genotype (VP4) was P[8] (86%) and other genotypes respectively were P[6] (6.9%) and P[4] (6.9%).

Conclusion: A high prevalence of the P[8] genotype was found to be the cause of acute diarrhea. The analysis of P[8] genotype sequence showed a high level of similarity of the virus in this study with those of other Asian countries.