RNA of the newly identified human metapneumovirus (HMPV) was detected in nasopharyngeal aspirates of 11 of 63 (17.5%) young children with respiratory tract disease. Markers of infection caused by another member of the Pneumovirinae subfamily of the family Paramyxoviridae, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), were identified in 15 of these patients (23.8%). Three patients were simultaneously infected with HMPV and RSV. Studies of the clinical characteristics of HMPV-infected children did not reveal any difference between HMPV-infected patients and a control population of RSV-infected patients with regard to disease severity, but the duration of symptoms was significantly shorter for HMPV-infected patients. Phylogenetic analysis of the amplified viral genome fragments confirmed the existence and simultaneous circulation within one epidemic season of HMPV isolates belonging to two genetic lineages.Recently, a new infectious agent, human metapneumovirus (HMPV), was isolated from nasopharyngeal aspirates of young children with respiratory tract illness from The Netherlands (7). HMPV, together with avian pneumovirus serotypes A, B, C, and D, form the Metapneumovirus genus of the Pneumovirinae subfamily of the family Paramyxoviridae (7,8). Information on the biology of HMPV, as well as on the prevalence and clinical significance of HMPV infection, is scarce. Preliminary data, however, demonstrated that HMPV can cause severe respiratory disease in children younger than age 5 years (2, 3, 4, 6, 7). These observations suggest that HMPV can play an important role in the infectious pathology of humans and indicate the necessity of more detailed study of this agent and infections caused by this agent. Here, we report on the prevalence and clinical characteristics of HMPV infection in children with respiratory disease from Germany and on the genetic heterogeneity of the HMPV isolates identified. MATERIALS AND METHODSSpecimens. Nasopharyngeal aspirates were collected from 63 hospitalized patients younger than age 2 years. These patients represented all children in this age group admitted to the Essen University Hospital with upper or lower respiratory tract infection between January and May 2002. Most of these patients presented with wheezing and/or signs of respiratory distress (Table 1). The clinical data for the HMPV-infected patients were compared to those for a control group of children from the same population infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).Reverse transcription (RT)-PCR for HMPV RNA. RNA was extracted from nasopharyngeal aspirates with the RNeasy kit (QIAGEN) and reverse transcribed and amplified with two primer sets. Information on the first set, which included two primers whose sequences were derived from the L gene and which generated a DNA fragment of 171 bp, was kindly provided by van den Hoogen et al. (7). The second set was designed in the present study. It included four primers whose sequences were derived from the nucleocapsid (N) gene. Primer 750as (5Ј-TGCTTTGCTGCCTGTAGATGATGAG) was used to gene...

To determine the prevalence and incidence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections among haemodialysis patients, a large prospective multicentre trial was conducted in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia. Sera obtained from the recruited patients in two separate sampling rounds run 1 year apart were analysed for both anti-HCV antibodies and HCV RNA. HCV RNA positive samples were also genotyped by direct sequencing of an HCV core fragment. In the first and second rounds, 150 (5.2%) of 2909 and 114 (5.4%) of 2100 patients were anti-HCV positive, respectively, and 4% of individuals were viraemic. Evaluation of potential risk factors in a case-control study indicated that the factors 'foreign country of birth', 'blood transfusions given before 1991' and 'duration of treatment on haemodialysis' were associated with the risk of HCV infection. Among the 2100 patients of whom 'paired' serum samples from both rounds were available for testing, not a single 'de novo' HCV infection could be recorded. The fact that in a subset of about 20% of these patients no nosocomial GB virus C (GBV-C) transmission occurred during the observational period suggests that the lack of HCV seroconversions was not only attributable to the isolation of HCV-infected patients but also to the strict adherence to so-called universal hygienic precautions for infection control maintained in the participating dialysis centres.

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