الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The aim of this work is to investigate rotavirus as a causative agent of severe persistent diarrhea in infants and young children ( below five years) and to correlate the rotavirus gastroenteritis with breast feeding , malnutrition , and other bacterial infections. One hundred and fifty Egyptian children ( below five years) were included in this study. 100 child of them were suffering from severe persistent diarrhea, and 50 child were either apparently healthy or suffering from comolaints other than diarrhea ( age and sex matched ) were included as control subjects. The results in this study showed that : (36%) of the infantile diarrhea group were positive for rotavirus antigen and ( 61%) of them were negative. The controls were negative except 3 children who were positive for rotavirus antigen. The period and frequency of diarrhea were more in rotavirus positive than in negative group. Vomiting and dehydration were detected more among rotavirus positive than in rotavirus negative cases. The percentage of positivity for rotavirus antigen was detected more in artificially fed infants than in breast fed babies.