Every day, Doctor Jimmy Mohamed answers your questions and reacts to health news.

This Monday, he returns to the usefulness and controversies surrounding the vaccine against gastroenteritis.

Do you know that a vaccine exists against gastroenteritis?

It can be useful in preventing severe forms in infants but carries a risk of side effects which sometimes makes it controversial.

Doctor Jimmy Mohamed responds to the concerns of a listener and young mother, Monday in the program

Sans rendez-vou

s on Europe 1.

>> Find Sans Rendez-vous in podcast and replay here 

"This vaccine follows the principle of vaccination but without injunction, we can drink it. It is not a vaccine against gastroenteritis but against a strain, that of the rotavirus, which gives gastros. It helps to prevent them. severe forms of gastro associated with this strain of the virus, especially in children under 1 year old. "

Why is the vaccine ineffective after a year? 

"When you are an adult, not only do you pay more attention, but the risk is lower. You can wash your hands, respect barrier gestures, so adults are not affected by this vaccination. small gastro is a source of hospitalization and therefore from six weeks, up to six or eight months we can offer this vaccination, in the form of two or three doses, in drinkable form, one month apart. beyond that it is no longer effective. So at one year it is already too late. "

What are the risks of side effects?

"It is true that it is not very popular but it is very effective. It reduces by 85% the chances of getting a severe form of gastrointestinal illness linked to rotavirus, which is a dominant strain during epidemics, therefore the the child will be less hospitalized if he ever catches it, but that doesn't mean he won't have gastro.

On the other hand, we realized that there was one side effect that will remain in one in 10,000 children and which can be potentially serious: acute intussusception.

It is a piece of intestine that will get stuck in another end of the intestine and act as a form of obstruction which is taken care of in the hospital, which is still quite severe.

Usually the peak frequency occurs at the age of nine months.

This results in a child who will scream in pain - because he has a piece of intestine that will get stuck - he will be in great pain, he will calm down then there will be repeated crying, he will vomit and it's going to be all soft.

In these cases you have to go to the emergency room and do an ultrasound to make the diagnosis. "