Australian researchers have begun clinical trials of a new vaccine to protect newborn infants against rotavirus, a life-threatening diarrhoeal disease that kills half a million children worldwide each year.

The RV3 vaccine, developed by the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (MCRI), was launched today and is the first in the world specifically developed for newborns.

Babies aged six to eight weeks are being recruited for a clinical trial of the vaccine in Melbourne.  If successful, the vaccine will be tested in babies in two larger international trials from 2011.

The trial is the culmination of almost four decades of research in Australia by MCRI, the Royal Children’s Hospital and the University of Melbourne, following the discovery of rotavirus by a team of staff led by Professor Ruth Bishop in 1973.