Epidemiological trends in respiratory pathogens infections among children post-COVID-19: A cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiological trend of respiratory pathogens infections among children after the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

METHODS

This study enrolled 575,373 children who came to our hospital for relevant respiratory pathogen antigen/antibody testing due to respiratory symptoms such as fever and cough. The demographic and laboratory data, including age, gender, testing time, and influenza A virus (IAV), influenza B virus (IBV), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), adenovirus (ADV), and (MP) results, were collected from electronic medical records. SPSS (version 21.0) and GraphPad Prism 9 software were used for statistical analysis and figure creation.

RESULTS

79,746 children tested positive for IAV IgM, and 3196 children tested positive for IBV IgM, with an overall positive rate of 28.5 % for IAV and 1.1 % for IBV. IAV infections peaked at 21,502 cases in March 2023. 80,699 children underwent RSV IgM testing from April to October 2023, with 5726 (7.1 %) testing positive. The apex of RSV infections occurred in May 2023, with 2140 cases. Regarding ADV, 100,460 children underwent testing from April to October 2023, with 1981 (11.9 %) testing positive. The pinnacle of ADV infections reached 4546 cases in November 2023. Concerning MP, 474,913 children underwent MP testing, with 73,833 (15.5 %) testing positive. The zenith of MP infections occurred in November 2023, with 25,291 cases. Further analysis revealed that the outbreaks of these pathogens are occurring earlier than in previous years. Additionally, our data showed that children aged >3 years accounted for 79.6 %, 87.8 %, 88.6 %, and 77.8 % of the total IAV-positive, IBV-positive, ADV-positive, and MP-positive children, respectively. Conversely, RSV primarily infected children <6 years.

CONCLUSION

Various respiratory pathogens showed an epidemic trend in children among children post-COVID-19. These results indicated that we should pay timely attention to the epidemiological trends and characteristics of respiratory pathogens in children after the COVID-19 pandemic and provide relevant information for society and clinical practice.