Human bocavirus as the cause of a life-threatening infection

Abstract

Human bocavirus is a recently described respiratory pathogen. A case of a life-threatening human bocavirus infection of a previously healthy pediatric patient is described. An initial clinical presentation of acute bronchiolitis developed into an extremely severe course of disease characterized by pneumothorax, pneumomediastinum, and acute respiratory failure with pronounced air-leak syndrome.

Fig. 1.

EM image of HBoV in a direct preparation from a nasopharyngeal swab suspension (A) and HBoV in the patient's nasopharyngeal swab suspension mixed with the patient's plasma (ratio 1:1) (B), marked with protein A gold (15 nm). Both EM preparations were negatively stained with 2% phosphotungstic acid (PTA; pH 4.5) and examined with a transmission electron microscope (JEM 1200 EX II; Jeol, Japan) at a magnification of ×200,000.

Fig. 2.

HBoV DNA viral loads in respiratory and plasma samples of patient during hospitalization and on the first follow-up visit are shown.