A fifteen-year-old girl came to see a doctor. Her face was green and her lips were white, her face was withered, and she looked sickly, which was in sharp contrast to summer, which is a season full of vitality. When I inquired about the symptoms, I found out that she "vomited to the point of color", vomiting eight or nine times a day, and also had a fever. It was clinically determined that she had gastroenteritis caused by a viral infection. As she showed signs of dehydration, she was hospitalized and given glucose and fluids, and she was tested for the virus.
Viral gastroenteritis is highly contagious. If furniture stained with vomitus is not cleaned with disinfectant, the virus can survive on the surface for a long time. Usually if one person has an accident, the whole family will be affected. But the girl's family is fine, but she is sick. Why?
The mystery was revealed and it turned out that she was infected with rotavirus. Rotavirus is a common viral gastroenteritis in Hong Kong, but this virus can make people produce antibodies, which can reduce the severity of future reinfections. In Hong Kong, more than 90% of adults have been infected at least once or twice before the age of five. As long as they have been infected twice, the body has been able to produce very good antibodies and is almost immune. Even if you get hit again in the future, most of them will be fine. Therefore, in clinical practice, it is rare to see a 15-year-old girl being so severely afflicted by rotavirus.
There is no specific medicine for viral gastroenteritis, and the patient can only rely on the patient to expel the virus. The important thing is not to let them vomit or become dehydrated during the process. For children and teenagers, it is important to supplement them with sugar and salt, and to inject antiemetic injections when necessary. The author speculates that this young girl must have lived in an unusually clean environment and had no antibodies in her body, which is why she was so resistant to rotavirus.
吳瑞芬醫生 
劉家輝醫生