Analysis of pathogen characteristics in children with acute respiratory tract infection / 中华实验和临床病毒学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To determine the epidemic characteristics of respiratory viruses, mycoplasma pneumonia(MP) and chlamydia pneumoniae(CP) in outpatients and hospitalized children with acute respiratory tract infections(ARI), to lay a foundation for the prevention and control of ARI.@*Methods@#From 2011 to 2013, children with ARI, including outpatients and inpatients, were involved in this study. One nasopharyngeal aspirate or throat swab specimen was collected from each patient.Real time PCRs were performed to detect common respiratory tract viruses, MP and CP.@*Results@#At least one pathogen was identified in each of 610 out of 908 patients and the overall positive rate was 67.2%. The positive rate in inpatient(76.7%)was higher than that in outpatient(43.0%) (χ2=94.79, P<0.001). Simultaneous detection of two or more viruses was found in 206 cases.Co-infection was more frequent in inpatients than in outpatients(29.0% VS 6.6%, P<0.001). Significant differences of the detection rate were observed in RSV, PIV, HRV, Flu, human bocavirus (hBoV), adenovirus (AdV), saffold virus(SAFV), MP and CP between the inpatient and outpatient group. Respiratory syncytial virus(RSV)(34.5%) was the most prevalent virus detected among hospitalized children, followed by MP(15.0%)and human rhinovirus(HRV)(14.6%). Whereas adenovirus(AdV) (15.2%)was the most frequently identified virus in the outpatient group, followed by influenza virus(Flu)(11.7%))and PIV(7.8%). Except for RSV and Flu, co-infection of the other pathogens was more frequent than its mono-infection in inpatients. Significant differences of the AdV co-infection rate were observed between the inpatient and outpatient group(χ2=18.90, P<0.001). Compared with mono-infection, co-infection has no significant effect on the clinical presentation.@*Conclusions@#The detection rate of respiratory pathogens was higher in inpatients than in outpatients with ARI, and co-infections were more popular in children hospitalized, it may show that co-infection had some correlation with disease severity.