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. 2016 Jan 13;11(1):e0147041.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147041. eCollection 2016.

Aetiology of Acute Respiratory Tract Infections in Hospitalised Children in Cyprus

Jan Richter  1 , Christakis Panayiotou  1 , Christina Tryfonos  1 , Dana Koptides  1 , Maria Koliou  2 , Nikolas Kalogirou  2 , Eleni Georgiou  2 , Christina Christodoulou  1
Affiliations

Aetiology of Acute Respiratory Tract Infections in Hospitalised Children in Cyprus

Jan Richter et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

In order to improve clinical management and prevention of viral infections in hospitalised children improved etiological insight is needed. The aim of the present study was to assess the spectrum of respiratory viral pathogens in children admitted to hospital with acute respiratory tract infections in Cyprus. For this purpose nasopharyngeal swab samples from 424 children less than 12 years of age with acute respiratory tract infections were collected over three epidemic seasons and were analysed for the presence of the most common 15 respiratory viruses. A viral pathogen was identified in 86% of the samples, with multiple infections being observed in almost 20% of the samples. The most frequently detected viruses were RSV (30.4%) and Rhinovirus (27.4%). RSV exhibited a clear seasonality with marked peaks in January/February, while rhinovirus infections did not exhibit a pronounced seasonality being detected almost throughout the year. While RSV and PIV3 incidence decreased significantly with age, the opposite was observed for influenza A and B as well as adenovirus infections. The data presented expand our understanding of the epidemiology of viral respiratory tract infections in Cypriot children and will be helpful to the clinicians and researchers interested in the treatment and control of viral respiratory tract infections.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Age distribution of paediatric patients hospitalised with acute respiratory infections.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Seasonality of RSV, rhinovirus and influenza virus infections.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Distribution of virus infection by patient age for the 7 most frequently detected viruses.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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