Human metapneumovirus (HMPV) is a newly discovered pathogen thought to be associated with respiratory disease. We report the results of a study of 587 children hospitalized with respiratory infection over a 13-month period. HMPV was detected in the nasopharyngeal aspirates from 32 (5.5%) children by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. HMPV infection was associated with clinical diagnoses of pneumonia (36%), asthma exacerbation (23%), or acute bronchiolitis (10%). When compared to those with respiratory syncytial virus infection, children with HMPV infection were older, and wheezing was more likely to represent asthma exacerbation rather than acute bronchiolitis. HMPV viral activity peaked during the spring-summer period in Hong Kong. Phylogenetically, all HMPV virus strains from Hong Kong belonged to one of the two genetic lineages previously described. HMPV contributed to 441.6 hospital admissions per 100,000 population <6 years of age.

There is a temporal pattern of lung abnormalities at thin-section CT in SARS. Predominant findings at presentation are ground-glass opacities and consolidation. Reticulation is evident after the 2nd week and persists in half of all patients evaluated after 4 weeks. Long-term follow-up is required to determine whether the reticulation represents irreversible fibrosis.

Impairments of attention and memory are evident in early psychosis, and are associated with functional disability. In a group of stable, medicated women patients, we aimed to determine whether participating in aerobic exercise or yoga improved cognitive impairments and clinical symptoms. A total of 140 female patients were recruited, and 124 received the allocated intervention in a randomized controlled study of 12 weeks of yoga or aerobic exercise compared with a waitlist group. The primary outcomes were cognitive functions including memory and attention. Secondary outcome measures were the severity of psychotic and depressive symptoms, and hippocampal volume. Data from 124 patients were included in the final analysis based on the intention-to-treat principle. Both yoga and aerobic exercise groups demonstrated significant improvements in working memory (P<0.01) with moderate to large effect sizes compared with the waitlist control group. The yoga group showed additional benefits in verbal acquisition (P<0.01) and attention (P=0.01). Both types of exercise improved overall and depressive symptoms (all P⩽0.01) after 12 weeks. Small increases in hippocampal volume were observed in the aerobic exercise group compared with waitlist (P=0.01). Both types of exercise improved working memory in early psychosis patients, with yoga having a larger effect on verbal acquisition and attention than aerobic exercise. The application of yoga and aerobic exercise as adjunctive treatments for early psychosis merits serious consideration. This study was supported by the Small Research Funding of the University of Hong Kong (201007176229), and RGC funding (C00240/762412) by the Authority of Research, Hong Kong.