A study on the prevalence of rotavirus infection among the HIV-positive patients with gastroenteritis

Gastroenteritis is one of the most common symptoms in AIDS patients. Although gastroenteritis in these patients is caused by several factors, the role of viral agents, especially rotavirus, is still unknown. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of rotavirus infection among the HIV-positive cases. In this cross-sectional study, 75 fecal samples were collected from HIV-positive patients with gastroenteritis referred to Imam Khomeini hospital. After viral RNA extraction, the sixth conserved segment of the virus genome (VP6) was amplified using RT-PCR method. Finally, the products were detected on 1.5% agarose gel electrophoresis and confirmed by sequencing. RT-PCR products with the expected size (433bp) were obtained for all rotavirus- positive as well as the wild-type standard viral isolates. Among the samples taken from 75 HIV-positive cases, 19 (25.3%) were rotavirus-positive and confirmed using direct sequencing. Although in this study the anticipated prevalence of rotavirus among the HIV-positive cases is about 25%, further studies are required to characterize the genotype of rotavirus in HIV- positive cases with gastroenteritis.