Good news! Vaccines provided by the UN, the WHO, GAVI, and charitable NGO’s have dramatically decreased the number of rotavirus deaths in children in Nicaragua.

In young children, rotavirus disease is characterized by diarrhea, vomiting, fever, and severe dehydration. Death is caused by dehydration due to rotavirus infection, not by the virus itself. Diarrheal disease caused by rotavirus is the second leading cause of death worldwide in children under 5 years of age.

(The leading cause of death worldwide in children under 5 years of age is Malaria. It kills one child every 30 seconds. That’s the bad news.)