Friday, July 23, 1999
Need for vaccine 'greater than previously thought'
BY DAN KLEPAL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Julie Merland didn't know why her 2-week-old baby had diarrhea, but she knew her boy needed to go to the hospital.
After she found out her son, Jeffrey, suffered from rotavirus — a disease that sickens 50,000 children in the United States every year, killing about 50 — Mrs. Merland had a note stuck on Jeffrey's crib to say what the baby couldn't:
“Please wash hands before handling me.”
Rotavirus is caused when children swallow trace amounts of fecal matter. Infected chil dren have severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhea and can die of dehydration.
“I was just scared to death,” said Mrs. Merland, 29, of Lebanon. “He was so little to be having these problems. He couldn't keep any food down.”
Researchers at Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati on Thursday announced that they have discovered a vaccine that can kill the virus before it can kill children.
“Our goal came about from the number of kids getting sick and dying (from the virus) around the world,” said Dr. Richard Ward, who co-discovered the vaccine with Dr. David Bernstein. “If this is a vaccine that really works, it will prevent most of that.”
The study — which took place at Children's Hospital, Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, Pittsburgh Pediatric Research and Pennridge Pediatric Associates in Philadelphia — involved giving half the children the vaccine and half a placebo.
Of those families reporting vomiting or diarrhea, rotavirus was detected in 20 infants. Only two of those 20 were in the group that received the vaccine.
Also, all 10 infants requiring medical treatment were in the placebo group.
Dr. Ward said it will be about a year before larger clinical tests get under way. “It will be tested in great detail,” he said.
Dr. Mary Allen Staat is an epidemiologist at Children's Hospital who tracks the number of rotavirus cases. She said the virus is most common in children younger than 2. Later infections become less severe, she said.
More than 120 cases of rotavirus have been diagnosed at Children's Hospital this year. She said the virus has been underestimated in the past.
“The estimate has been that only 30 to 40 percent of the kids coming into the hospital suffer from the virus, and it is clearly much higher than that,” Dr. Staat said. “The need (for a vaccine) is greater than previously thought.”
Mrs. Merland doesn't need convincing. She said Jeffrey may have had rotavirus as many as three times in his three months of life.
“The doctors told me he'll get over it, then get it again, but it will be less severe each time,” Mrs. Merland said.
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