Prevalence and clinical features of human metapneumovirus infection in hospitalized children with lower respiratory tract infection / 中国感染与化疗杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To elucidate the prevalence and clinical characteristics of human metapneumovirus(hMPV)in hospital- ized children with respiratory infection.Methods A total of 452 hospitalized children with lower respiratory tract infection were observed from Aug 2004 to Jan 2005.Respiratory tract aspirates were collected from all patients within 48 hours after admis sion.The specimens were routinely tested for respiratory syncytial virus,influenza virus A and B,parainfluenza virus 1 to 3 and adenovirus by direct fluorescent assay(DFA).The 245 specimens negative by DFA were tested for hMPV by RT-PCR. PCR products of hMPV M gene from some patients were randomly selected for sequencing analysis.Results hMPV was identi- fied in 59(24.1%)of the 245 specimens tested,hMPV infection alone accounted for 13.1% of the infections in the 452 chil- dren under study,The prevalence of hMPV was higher than other respiratory viruses in winter.The mean age of hMPV-infec- ted children(n=59)was 27.7 months.There was no significant difference between age groups in terms of the prevalence of hMPV(P＞0.05).There were no statistically significant difference in demographics and clinical symptoms between hMPV in- fection and other common respiratory virus infection.Genotyping for the hMPV M gene from 23 Shanghai patients showed two distinct hMPV genotypes.Sequence analysis of these hMPV M genes showed 82.8%-100% homology to the registered se- quence in GenBank.There was no significant difference in clinical characteristics between the 2 genotypes.Conclusions hMPV plays an important pathogenic role in lower respiratory tract infection of children,hMPV prevailed in the winter of 2004.Clini- cally,hMPV infection can not be discriminated from the infection of other respiratory viruses.Clinical manifestation is similar between the two hMPV genotypes.