Abstract
BackgroundHuman bocavirus (HBoV) is a newly discovered parvovirus and increasing evidences are available to support its role as an etiologic agent in lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI). The objective of this study is to assess the impact of HBoV viral load on clinical characteristics in children who were HBoV positive and suffered severe LRTI.MethodsLower respiratory tract aspirates from 186 hospitalized children with severe LRTI were obtained by bronchoscopy. HBoVs were detected by real-time PCR and other 10 infectious agents were examined using PCR and/or direct fluorescent assay.ResultsThirty-one patients (24.6%) were tested positive for HBoV in the respiratory tract aspirates. Fifteen samples had a high viral load (>104 copies/mL) and the other sixteen samples had a low viral load (<104 copies/mL). The duration of presented wheezing and hospitalization was longer in children with high viral load of HBoV than that in children with low viral load. The days of wheezing showed a correlation with viral load of HBoV.ConclusionWe confirmed that HBoV was frequently detected in patients with severe LRTI. Wheezing was one of the most common symptoms presented by patients with positive HBoV. A high HBoV viral load could be an etiologic agent for LRTI, which led to more severe lower respiratory tract symptom, longer duration of wheezing and hospitalization.
Highlights
Human bocavirus (HBoV) is a newly discovered parvovirus that was first identified in Sweden from pooled nasopharyngeal aspirate specimens by large-scale molecular virus screening [1]
A number of epidemiological and clinical investigations have been conducted to assess HBoV- related illness; its clinical features have been reported, which resembled those of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and human metapneumovirus infections [10]
HBoV DNA was detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in 31 out of 186 patient’s samples (24.6%)
Summary
Human bocavirus (HBoV) is a newly discovered parvovirus that was first identified in Sweden from pooled nasopharyngeal aspirate specimens by large-scale molecular virus screening [1]. Increasing evidences are emerging to support its role as an etiologic agent in lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) [2,3,4,5]. Few data are available related to physical characteristics and clinical severity for children with HBoV-positive LRTIs [7]. Human bocavirus (HBoV) is a newly discovered parvovirus and increasing evidences are available to support its role as an etiologic agent in lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI).
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