Epidemiology and seasonality of acute respiratory infections in hospitalized children over four consecutive years (2012-2016).

BACKGROUND

Acute respiratory infections are a principal cause of illness and mortality especially in young children worldwide.

OBJECTIVES

To study the epidemiology and seasonality of viral respiratory infections in hospitalized children (under the age of 16) between September 2012 and August 2016.

STUDY DESIGN

Nasopharyngeal swabs or aspirates were collected from 3199 symptomatic patients and then screened with a routine multiplex PCR assay.

RESULTS

Respiratory viruses were detected for 1624 (50.8%) of the 3199 children in the study population. Of these, 210 (13.3%) were positive for two viruses, 28 (1.7%) were positive for three, and 3 (0.2%) were positive for four. The viral profile varied with age. Some viruses were significantly more frequent in children under the age of 1 month (such as human respiratory syncytial virus (p < 0.0001)), whereas others were significantly more frequent in children over that age (such as influenza viruses (p < 0.0001) and adenoviruses (p = .0006)). The distribution of viruses is variable over the year depending on the species. However, the atmospheric temperature was rarely found to be a limiting factor in the circulation of respiratory viruses.

CONCLUSIONS

our results constitute a detailed description of the distribution of respiratory viruses among hospitalized children over four consecutive years. Our data notably highlight the persistence of non-enveloped viruses and some enveloped viruses throughout the year-regardless of temperature variations.