Some diseases dominate the headlines, while others quietly wreak havoc in the background. One of those sneaky culprits is the rotavirus—a virus that causes watery diarrhea, fever, abdominal pain, and vomiting.
Until the early 1970s, the virus claimed the lives of over half a million children under the age of 5, mostly in developing countries each year. Up until that point, doctors could only identify the cause of diarrheal disease in children in less than 30% of the cases—whether it was bacterial, viral, or parasitic. I had never even heard of it, and while it has gained more widespread attention now, the disease is still a bit of a hurdle.
Rotavirus didn’t even have a name until 1973 when Australian researcher Ruth Bishop and her team at The University of Melbourne and Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne uncovered it. Ruth had been investigating a nasty stomach bug that caused severe diarrhea and vomiting in kids.
