Australian Rotavirus Surveillance Program: Annual Report, 2019

This report, from the Australian Rotavirus Surveillance Program and collaborating laboratories Australia-wide, describes the rotavirus genotypes identified in children and adults with acute gastroenteritis during the period 1 January to 31 December 2019. During this period, 964 faecal specimens had been referred for rotavirus G- and P- genotype analysis, including 894 samples that were confirmed as rotavirus positive. Of these, 724/894 were wild-type rotavirus strains and 169/894 were identified as vaccine-like. A single sample could not be determined as wild-type or vaccine-like due to poor sequencing. Genotype analysis of the 724 wild-type rotavirus samples from both children and adults demonstrated that G3P[8] was the dominant genotype nationally, identified in 46.7% of samples, followed by G2P[4] in 8.8% of samples. The Australian National Immunisation Program (NIP) changed to the exclusive use of Rotarix as of 1 July 2017. The NIP had previously included two live-attenuated oral vaccines: Rotarix (monovalent, human) and RotaTeq (pentavalent, human-bovine reassortant) in a state-based vaccine selection. Continuous surveillance is imperative to determine the effect of this change in rotavirus vaccine schedule on the genotype distribution and diversity in Australia.