Abstract
Active surveillance for zoonotic respiratory viruses is essential to inform the development of appropriate interventions and outbreak responses. Here we target individuals with a high frequency of animal exposure in Vietnam. Three‐year community‐based surveillance was conducted in Vietnam during 2013‐2016. We enrolled a total of 581 individuals (animal‐raising farmers, slaughterers, animal‐health workers, and rat traders), and utilized reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction to detect 15 common respiratory viruses in pooled nasal‐throat swabs collected at baseline or acute respiratory disease episodes. A respiratory virus was detected in 7.9% (58 of 732) of baseline samples, and 17.7% (136 of 770) of disease episode samples (P < .001), with enteroviruses (EVs), rhinoviruses and influenza A virus being the predominant viruses detected. There were temporal and spatial fluctuations in the frequencies of the detected viruses over the study period, for example, EVs and influenza A viruses were more often detected during rainy seasons. We reported the detection of common respiratory viruses in individuals with a high frequency of animal exposure in Vietnam, an emerging infectious disease hotspot. The results show the value of baseline/control sampling in delineating the causative relationships and have revealed important insights into the ecological aspects of EVs, rhinoviruses and influenza A and their contributions to the burden posed by respiratory infections in Vietnam.
Highlights
Acute respiratory tract infections are responsible for more than 3 million deaths worldwide.1 In Vietnam, a developing country in Southeast Asia, mortality attributed to acute respiratory infections accounted for half of that attributed to the other infectious diseases combined in 2016.1Viruses are regarded as the most common causes of acute respiratory diseases, and some emerging respiratory diseases as the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), both related to coronaviruses (CoVs), are listed in the WHO’s List of Blueprint priority diseases2 because of their pandemic potential
We showed that EVs, human rhinovirus (HRV) and influenza A virus were the predominant viruses detected in respiratory samples of the cohort members in both localities and that their detection rates were significantly higher in respiratory samples collected at respiratory disease episodes than in those collected at baseline
Our analysis shows that EVs and influenza A virus were more often found in the rainy season, and there were fluctuations in the detection of EVs and HRV over time, while influenza A virus activity was relatively stable over the study period, suggesting that these viruses may have interacted with the immune landscape of the study population
Summary
Acute respiratory tract infections are responsible for more than 3 million deaths worldwide. In Vietnam, a developing country in Southeast Asia, mortality attributed to acute respiratory infections accounted for half of that attributed to the other infectious diseases combined in 2016.1Viruses are regarded as the most common causes of acute respiratory diseases, and some emerging respiratory diseases as the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), both related to coronaviruses (CoVs), are listed in the WHO’s List of Blueprint priority diseases because of their pandemic potential. While the reported patterns of the etiological agents vary between geographic locations and age groups, generally, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)‐A, RSVB, influenza A virus, influenza B virus, adenovirus (ADV), enterovirus (EVs); human metapneumovirus (MPV), human rhinovirus (HRV), parainfluenza virus. Our aim was to describe the frequency of common respiratory viruses in clinical samples collected from these individuals, later called cohort members, at baseline and when a respiratory disease episode was reported during the study period
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