for the Paediatric Leghorn Group

A community sentinel pediatrician–based epidemiological and virological surveillance study was conducted to estimate the incidence of gastroenteritis and laboratory-confirmed ro-tavirus-associated disease. The 1-year cumulative incidence of gastroenteritis in the cohort of children aged 0–5 years was 21%, with the highest rates in the 7–12-month and 13– 18-month age groups (41.1 % and 41.7%, respectively). Ap-proximately one-third of gastroenteritis cases requiring an office visit or telephone consultation were attributable to rotavirus infection. Rotavirus infection is the most common cause of gastroenteritis in infants and young children. According to recent estimates, 1600,000 deaths attributable to rotavirus infection occur an-nually among children!5 years of age, with the majority of the deaths occurring in developing countries [1]. In developed countries, the public health burden is measured in infant hos-pitalizations, health care costs, and loss of time from work for the parents, and the epidemiological and virological picture is mainly based on data and specimens collected from hospitalized children [2–6]. Although it is clear that hospitalizations account for significant health care costs, little is known about rotavirus disease among children who do not require hospitalization