ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate prevalence of Saffold virus (SAFV) in Changsha area of hospitalized children with respiratory tract infection, and to discuss whether this virus is related to respiratory tract infection of children.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>643 nasopharyngeal aspirates samples were collected from hospitalized children with respiratory tract infection of the first affiliated hospital of Hunan nomal university during Nov. 2007 to Oct. 2008. Real-time fluorescent quanti-tative PCR(FQ-PCR) performed to screen the 5'UTR gene. And then analyze clinical data.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>SAFV were detected in 67 patients (10.42%) out of the 643 children, it was not detected over 5 years of age. The virus were detected in 8 patients (25.81%) out of the 31 children with persistent pneumonia and chronic pneumonia, there was statistically significant.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>There existed SAFV infection in hospitalized children with lower respiratory infection in Changsha area; SAFV maybe related to disease onset with lower respiratory tract infection of children.</p>