Scientists have taken a step closer to creating a vaccine against a virus that causes the most common form of diarrhea and vomiting in children. A team of scientists from Harvard Medical School and the Children’s Hospital Boston in the United States created models down to the atom of key proteins that form part of the virus, called the rotavirus. The rotavirus infects almost all children, usually between six months and two years old, and kills an estimated 440,000 children per year, mostly in poor countries. The only licensed vaccine against the rotavirus, called RotaShield, was pulled from the U.S. market in 1999 over fears it could cause complications. It is made from live viruses.
