Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of hospitalization in infants worldwide, genotypes responsible of disease severity and host immune responses. This study aims to determine the infection rate of respiratory syncytial virus in children with respiratory tract infection and identify the genotyping among the study population. Cross sectional study which enrolled 150 infants with acute respiratory tract infection, males 81(54%) and females 69(46%) aged under five years old, who was admitted to Al-Imamin Al-Kadhimin Medical City and Pediatrics Protection Hospital in Baghdad during the period from December 2017 till April 2018. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from each participant and stored as frozen at -70 °C until to use for RNA extraction and convention polymerase chain reaction to detect of respiratory syncytial virus in the study population. According to result of this study out of all these samples, 26 samples were positive for RSV(17.33%). The infection rate of RSV is more common in males 17(65.39%), than females 9(34.61%) and in children ≤ one year (46.15%) also high frequency were noticed among patients live in an urban area (73.08%) and winter 20 (76.92%) than spring 6 (23.08%). According to different clinical feature, fever, cough, and wheezing were more common than other sign. The sequence conducted for all RSV- positive isolates, 11 respiratory syncytial virus positive isolates was in genotype B and 1 in genotype A. The sequence of RSV B the local isolates were closed to Argentina isolation and Tailwind isolate while in genotype A isolates were closed to isolates from different regions (Saudi Arabia, German, India isolation). The conclusion of this study revealed that respiratory syncytial virus B infections were more frequent than RSV A among children with acute respiratory tract infection.

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Background:Respiratory tract illness is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among children, elderly and immunocompromised patients worldwide. Objective: To determine the infection rate of respiratory syncytial virus and human metapneumovirus among children with respiratory tract infection in Baghdad city. Patients and Methods: A cross sectional study was based on the processing of nasopharyngeal swabs from 150 children with acute respiratory tract infections, (81) males and (69)females; aged under five years old, who was admitted to Al-Imamin Al-Kadhimin Medical City and Pediatrics Protection Hospital in Baghdad during the period from December 2017 till April 2018. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from each participant and stored as frozen at -70 °C to use for RNA extraction and real time-polymerase chain reaction. Results: Out of all these samples, 54 samples were positive for respiratory syncytial virus (36%) and human metapneumovirus (1.33%). The infection rate of respiratory syncytial virus is more common in males (57.41%) than females and in children ≤ one year (37.04%) also high frequency were noticed among patients live in an urban area (72.22%) (50%) respectively and winter. According to different clinical feature, fever, cough, and wheezing were more common. Conclusion:The infection rate of respiratory syncytial virus was more than human metapneumovirus in children with respiratory tract infection using real time-PCR technique and the clinical manifestations were more common during respiratory syncytial virus and human metapneumovirus infection are cough, fever, wheezing.

Severe acute respiratory corona viruses (SARS-COVs) are a particular category of RNA viruses that have emerged as a potential danger to the human population, triggering epidemics and pandemics that have resulted in catastrophic human mortality. The SARS-CoV2, responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic that began on December 12, 2019 in Wuhan, China, has been linked to bats. A new SARS-CoV-2 variant appeared in late December 2020. Mutations with variants continued to appear until the time of this study. Thus, this study aimed to provide a local database among Iraqi patients about SARS-COV-2 variants as there have been very few local studies documenting its existence and its relationship with the progression and severity of infection. For this study 234 nasal swabs were collected from COVID-19 positive individuals between March 2021 to March 2022. RNA was extracted and tested by using real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) assay to confirm infection, and the variants were detected by using a special kit that stratified the characteristic mutations. Results showed the presence of Alpha, Beta or Gamma and Omicron variants in our population at the same time as their global spread at high rates with different severity of cases.  It  increased in severity during infections with wild type 26/32 (81.25%) and Alpha 82/109 (75.23%) variants but a high incidence of Beta or Gamma 28/38 (73.68%) and Omicron 35/46 (76.09%) variants within mild-moderate infections. Moreover, there was a significant increase in severity in older age groups than younger. Hence, we can conclude that most severe infections with SARS-COV-2 appeared in wild type and during the appearance of Alpha variant which provided a unique database of variants of COVID-19 circulating in the Iraqi population and also assisted in determining the severity of disease. More research is needed on this subject.