Contributor: Jared Scott MD
Educational Pearls
-
A recently published study assessed the burden of respiratory viruses in a longitudinal cohort of children from 0 to 2 years of age
-
The children in the study received nasal swab PCR testing weekly to determine infectivity
-
They were also monitored for symptoms via weekly text surveys
-
The study differentiated between infection and illness by defining an acute respiratory illness (ARI) as fever ≥38°C or cough.
-
-
The median infectivity rate was 9.4 viral infections per child per year
-
The median illness rate was 3.3 ARIs per child per year
-
-
The most common etiological viruses isolated from the nasal samples were rhinovirus and enterovirus
-
Most infections were asymptomatic or mild
-
References
-
Teoh, Z., Conrey, S., McNeal, M., Burrell, A., Burke, R. M., Mattison, C., McMorrow, M., Payne, D. C., Morrow, A. L., & Staat, M. A. (2023). Burden of Respiratory Viruses in Children Less Than 2 Years Old in a Community-based Longitudinal US Birth Cohort. Clinical infectious diseases: an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, 77(6), 901–909. https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciad289
Summarized by Jorge Chalit, OMSII | Edited by Meg Joyce & Jorge Chalit, OMSII