Abstract
Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) are some of the most common human diseases worldwide. However, they have a complex and diverse etiology, and the characteristics of the pathogens involved in respiratory infections in developing countries are not well understood. In this work, we analyzed the characteristics of 17 common respiratory pathogens in children (≤14 years old) with ARI in Guangzhou, southern China over a 3-year period using real-time polymerase chain reaction. Pathogens were identified in 2361/4242 (55.7%) patients, and the positivity rate varied seasonally. Ten of the 17 pathogens investigated showed positivity rates of more than 5%. The most frequently detected pathogens were respiratory syncytial virus (768/2361, 32.5%), influenza A virus (428/2361, 18.1%), enterovirus (138/2361, 13.3%), Mycoplasma pneumoniae (267/2361, 11.3%) and adenovirus (213/2361, 9.0%). Co-pathogens were common and found in 503 of 2361 (21.3%) positive samples. When ranked according to frequency of occurrence, the pattern of co-pathogens was similar to that of the primary pathogens, with the exception of human bocavirus, human coronavirus and human metapneumovirus. Significant differences were found in age prevalence in 10 of the 17 pathogens (p≤0.009): four basic patterns were observed, A: detection rates increased with age, B: detection rates declined with age, C: the detection rate showed distinct peaks or D: numbers of patients were too low to detect a trend or showed no significant difference among age groups (p>0.05). These data will be useful for planning vaccine research and control strategies and for studies predicting pathogen prevalence.
Highlights
Acute respiratory infections (ARI) result in the death of an estimated 4 to 5 million children each year in developing countries [1,2,3,4]
Acute Respiratory Infections in Southern China according to the clinical situation of the patient, and pneumonia was defined as an acute illness with radiographic pulmonary shadowing by chest radiography
ADV mainly occurred in summer and autumn, it was generally distributed all year round; human metapneumovirus (HMPV) occurred at the change of season from spring to summer and from winter to spring; EV and human bocaviurs (HBoV) occurred mostly in summer and HBoV was prevalent in winter (Figure 4)
Summary
Acute respiratory infections (ARI) result in the death of an estimated 4 to 5 million children each year in developing countries [1,2,3,4]. Most of these deaths are among children with pneumonia. A number of new pathogens have been reported, including human metapneumovirus (HMPV) [7] and human bocaviurs (HBoV) [8], increasing the urgency for the study of epidemiology of respiratory tract pathogen infections in developing countries
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