Abstract

Background: The viral cause of acute diarrhea in children under five years old needs attention. Realtime-PCR helps accurately detect and detect many types of viruses. The study aimed to determine the proportion of viral agents causing acute diarrhea in children by real-time PCR and describe clinical and paraclinical characteristics in a group of children with acute viral diarrhea. Subjects and methods: Cross-sectional study on 271 children with acute diarrhea from 2 months to 5 years old admitted to Can Tho Children’s Hospital from November 2022 to July 2023. Results: The rate of viral infection was 164/271 (60.5%). Rotavirus accounts for the highest proportion (40.2%), followed by Adenovirus (9.6%), Norovirus (6.4%). Acute viral diarrhea was common in male (61.6%), aged 2 - 24 months (84.8%), and the rate of vomiting (81.1%), fever (81.7%) was high. Children infected with Rotavirus had lower white blood cell counts than children infected with other viruses. Conclusion: Viruses (mainly Rotavirus) are the main cause of acute diarrhea in children. Therefore, it is necessary to limit unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions