The prevalence of human bocavirus among children with acute respiratory tract infection in Guangdong / 中华传染病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the prevalence of human bocavirus(HBoV)among children with acute respiratory tract infection(ARTI)in Guangdong Province.Methods Four hundred and forty-seven nasopharyngeal aspirates or swabs samples from children with ARTI in Guangdong Province were collected from June 2007 to May 2008.HBoV capsid protein VP gene fragments were detected using polymerase chain reaction(PCR).Positive PCR products were sequenced.The DNA and translated amino acid sequences were aligned with known HBoV sequences in GenBank and phylogenetic analysis was also done.Results The positive rate of HBOV was 5.1%of samples from 447 ARTI cases.Ten samples were positive for both HBoV and other respiratory virus,which was 43.5%of positive samples.The main diagnosis for HBoV positive children included wheezing pneumonia,bronchiolitis and bronchial pneumonia.HBoV positive children ranged from 42 days to 6 years old,and most of them were younger than one year.HBOV infection was more common during summer,early autumn and late spring.Through sequence alignment and phylogenetie analysis,the DNA sequences and amino acid sequences of VP gene fragments of isolated HBoV strains showed 97.8%-98.8%and 99.3%-100.0%identity with ST1,respectively.Conclusions HBoV is one of the important pathogens of lower respiratory tract infection in children in Guangdong Province,which is more prevalent in infants younger than one year.Although VP gene fragment of HBoV is conservative in general,there are still some missense mutations.