I have always been interested in health issues and I have often heard about rotavirus affecting babies and young children. I hope it is relevant to mention this here, but when my brother was 8 about 25 years ago he had a stomach bug that lasted over a week and I often wonder if it was rotavirus.
I remember my brother started off by vomiting and having a fever, he only vomited once before the diarrhoea started. Something I remember is that it had a distinctive smell, like a sweet-rotten smell. I don't know if stool samples were common then, my brother didn't have one taken even though he saw the doctor more than once, although he did have an antibiotic which I think was metronidazole (I remember it started with M and had a Z in it). It was still a few days before the diarrhoea stopped, which was a week after it started and I remember his stomach still wasn't right for another few days after.
Although I have heard older children can get rotavirus, can they have it as severe as babies and younger children with a week-long duration or more? It sticks in my mind with my brother as I hadn't known a stomach bug to last that long. I also read that rotavirus in older children isn't as bad as in younger children, but I don't know it that is always the case. As far as I can remember, there wasn't an outbreak of gastroenteritis at my brother's primary school at that time.