Discovery of human rotavirus
Descubrimiento del rotavirus humano
- Date
- 1973 · confidence high
- Place
- Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Credited to
- Ruth Bishop and colleagues
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Ruth Bishop observed wheel-shaped particles with electron microscopy in intestinal biopsies of children with acute diarrhoea and identified them as a virus. It is now the leading cause of severe childhood gastroenteritis worldwide.
An earlier finding in mice and calves (1960s) had shown viruses of this family in animals; Bishop identified it in humans in 1973 and published in The Lancet.
What it led to
- oral rotavirus vaccines from 2006
- reduced child mortality from diarrhoea
- diagnosis by ELISA and PCR