High incidence of viral co-infections and atypical bacterial detection in acute respiratory infections among hospitalized children in the Central Department of Paraguay, 2010–2011

Abstract

High incidence of viral co-infections and atypical bacterial detection in acute respiratory infections among hospitalized children in the Central Department of Paraguay, 2010e2011 Griffiths and colleagues, in this Journal, recently highlighted the nature and consequences of microbial coinfections. Their results suggest differences between co-infected patients and those with single infections, with co-infection having serious health effects. 1 The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of viral and atypical bacterial pathogens as single or as co-infections in hospitalized children with acute respiratory infections (ARIs) in Paraguay. ARIs with 3.5 million deaths annually, account for 20% of all deaths in preschool children worldwide, with 90% of these deaths due to pneumonia. Risk factors for severe ARI include malnutrition, low birth weight, passive smoking, no breastfeeding, low socioeconomic status, overcrowding, immunodeficiency and HIV infection, and consequently, the greatest morbidity associated with ARIs occurs in the developing world. 2 The most frequently implicated viruses consistently shown to predominate among hospitalized children with ARIs are respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human rhinovirus (hRV), human metapneumovirus (hMPV), and parainfluenza viruses (PIV1-2-3-4). Other commonly implicated pathogens are influenza A

Viral causes of severe acute respiratory infection in hospitalized children and association with outcomes: A two-year prospective surveillance study in Suriname

“…The overall prevalence of pathogens (92%), and the proportion of viral co-infections (32%) in our study are comparable with those reported in the literature [ 3 , 7 , 8 , 16 , 17 ]. Consistent with other studies, we found that the predominant pathogens were RV/ENT, RSV, and parainfluenza virus, and that RSV was especially frequently detected among the youngest of children [ 5 , 8 , 16 , 18 – 20 ]. Of the collected samples, 10% tested positive for one of the influenza types.…”

Application of Multiplex PCR Coupled with Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization–Time of Flight Analysis for Simultaneous Detection of 21 Common Respiratory Viruses

“…Therefore, the CRV-MS method can be a useful alternative for those samples that are suspected to contain multiple respiratory viruses. Respiratory virus coinfections have been frequently detected in clinical samples (33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41). Pretorius et al (8) found that 17% of 8,173 patients with a severe acute respiratory illness in South Africa had respiratory virus coinfections.…”

Presence of ON1 and BA HRSV-genotypes in Paraguay, 2010–2013

“…In Paraguay, we have previously found that children with severe acute respiratory infection required longer time of hospitalization (5-15 days) when HRSV was present alone or in co-infection with adenovirus, rhinovirus, or coronavirus [4]. The lack of genetic information about these Paraguayan HRSV isolates led us to carry out a molecular characterization of the circulating genotypes in the Central Department.…”