A potentially fatal virus that causes fever, vomiting and severe watery diarrhea among small children is raging throughout Northern California, recent data shows.
According to WastewaterSCAN, which monitors traces of viruses in municipal wastewater, rates of rotavirus are high in Davis, Marin, Redwood City, San Jose and Fremont, and moderate in areas like San Francisco, Sunnyvale and Novato. The virus mostly causes severe symptoms among infants and young children between the ages of 3 months and 35 months, and can lead to dehydration, hospitalization or even death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website says.
“It’s extremely contagious,” Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco, told SFGATE Thursday, explaining that rotavirus is one of the lesser-known gastrointestinal illnesses. According to UCSF, approximately 50,000 children in the U.S. are hospitalized with it each year…