Diarrhea among hospitalized children under five: A call for inclusion of rotavirus vaccine to the national immunization program in Indonesia

•The annual prevalence of rotavirus remains high, nearly 50% of hospitalized children.•Rotavirus diarrhea occurred mostly in children under 2 years of age.•The most prevalent genotypes were G1P8 in 2010–2012 and G3P8 in 2013–2015. Rotavirus diarrhea is a common disease worldwide which mostly affects children under five years old. Rotavirus infection causes severe diarrhea and leads to substantial health care costs. In Indonesia the rotavirus vaccine has been available since 2011, however it has not been included into the National Immunization Program. This study aims to describe the proportion of rotavirus in children under 5 in Indonesia, the clinical characteristics of rotavirus infections, and the rotavirus strains circulating in the country during 2010–2015. Children under five years of age with acute watery diarrhea were prospectively identified and enrolled through the active diarrhea surveillance system in 5 sites in four provinces in Indonesia during 2010–2015. The rotavirus specimens were tested using Enzyme Immunoassay. Bivariate logistic regression tests were performed to compare rotavirus positive and negative results with respect to the collected demographic and clinical variables. From January 2010 to December 2015, the average annual rotavirus prevalence among children hospitalized with acute watery diarrhea in four provinces in Indonesia was 47.5%. Rotavirus diarrhea occurred mostly in children under 2 years of age. Of all age groups, children aged 6–11 and 12–23 months had the highest prevalence of rotavirus diarrhea in all years (54.2% and 50.6%, respectively). This study found that the most prevalent of G and P genotypes were G1P8 in 2010 (63.2%), 2011 (64.1%) and 2012 (74.6%) and G3P8 in 2013 (49.7%), 2014 (82.5%) and 2015 (84.4%) This study demonstrates that rotavirus is a major cause of diarrhea in hospitalized children in Indonesia. These findings highlight the need for inclusion of the rotavirus vaccine to the National Immunization Program in Indonesia.