In this study 2,089 fecal samples from patients with gastroenteritis were analyzed from different hospitals in Panama, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic during the period comprised between December 2002 and July 2003. One hundred samples per country from the positives to the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit were analyzed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to determine the G and P genotypes: in Panama, Costa Rica, and Dominican Republic the combinations G and P have a great diversity and unusual genotypes. These results highlight an unexpected diversity among rotavirus strains in these countries and emphasize the need for further serologic and genetic surveys on more rotavirus strains in Central America and the Caribbean. In this context, the next generation of rotavirus vaccines will need to provide adequate protection against diseases caused by unusual genotypes. These results represent the second report of rotavirus genotypes in Costa Rica and first-time reports of rotavirus genotypes in Panama and the Dominican Republic.

In this study, 574 stool samples from children with gastroenteritis were obtained from different hospitals in Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic during 2005–2006. Diarrhea stool samples were analyzed for rotavirus by ELISA and typed by the RT-PCR-based method. Unusual strains were detected: G1P6, G2P8, G3P6, G9P4 and mixed infections. Recent studies have indicated that unusual human rotavirus strains are emerging as global strains, which has important implications for effective vaccine development. In this context, the next generation of rotavirus vaccines will need to provide adequate protection against diseases caused not only by mixed infections, but also by unusual G/P combinations.

Rotaviruses are the most common cause of diarrhea in children and animals. Bats are considered reservoirs of many viruses with zoonotic impact worldwide. Rotaviruses have been detected in bats and many of those strains that have been identified globally share high homology with rotavirus strains identified in animals and humans, demonstrating that roles are being created in interspecies transmission and genetic rearrangement in a large number of occasions, which is producing rotavirus genetic diversity. The current effort to characterize strains of rotavirus in bats would help expand knowledge about the great genetic diversity of rotaviruses and could also suggest a bat origin for several unusual rotavirus strains detected in humans and animals. This is a review of the different strains of rotavirus that have been detected in bats globally, where bats have been identified as a possible zoonotic potential in the transmission of rotavirus to animals and humans; and possible anthropozoonosis events are revealed.

Rotavirus infections are the most common causes of infectious diarrhea in young children and animal worldwide. In some countries in Latin American specifically in Central American and Caribbean countries, rotavirus infections are not subject to specific surveillance. This review is about the unusually strains detected and potential zoonotic of rotavirus in Latin American. Although, interspecies transmission has not been documented to occur directly, an increase of the number of reports of atypical rotavirus genotypes; apparently derived from transmission between animal of farm, domestic and wild with humans, has been reported in some Latin American countries and the world. We consider that the rapid increase in the detection of new unusual strains with genetic heterogeneity, raises interesting questions about the evolution of rotavirus in The Latin American region. The emergence of novel strains derived from interspecies transmission has implications for the design and implementation of successful human rotavirus vaccine strategies.