Serologically diagnosed acute human bocavirus 1 infection in childhood community-acquired pneumonia.

AIM

To assess the role of human bocavirus 1 (HBoV1) as a causative agent of non-severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children.

METHODS

Patients aged 2-59 months with non-severe CAP (respiratory complaints and radiographic pulmonary infiltrate/consolidation) attending a University Hospital in Salvador, Brazil were enrolled in a prospective cohort. From 820 recruited children in a clinical trial (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01200706), nasopharyngeal aspirate (NPA), and acute and convalescent serum samples were obtained from 759 (92.6%) patients. NPAs were tested for 16 respiratory viruses by PCR. Acute HBoV1 infection was confirmed by measuring specific IgM and IgG responses in paired serum samples.

RESULTS

Respiratory viruses were detected in 693 (91.3%; 95%CI: 89.1-93.2) CAP cases by PCR. HBoV1-DNA was detected in 159 (20.9%; 95%CI: 18.2-24.0) cases. Of these 159 PCR positive cases, acute HBoV1 infection was confirmed serologically in 38 cases (23.9%; 95%CI: 17.8-31.0). Overall, acute HBoV1 infection was confirmed in 5.0% (38/759) of non-severe CAP patients. HBoV1 was detected in 151 cases with at least one other virus making 31.7% of all multiple virus (n = 477) detections. Among all 759 cases, 216 had one respiratory virus detected, and sole HBoV1 was detected in only 8 (3.7%). Acute HBoV1 infection was serologically diagnosed in 34 (22.5%) HBoV1-DNA-positive cases with another virus, compared to 4 (50.0%) cases with sole virus detection (p = 0.09).

CONCLUSION

HBoV1 was detected by PCR in one fifth of the children with non-severe CAP and acute HBoV1 infection was serologically confirmed in one quarter of these cases.