Epidemiology of HBoV1 infection and relationship with meteorological conditions in hospitalized pediatric patients with acute respiratory illness: a 7-year study in a subtropical region

Abstract

BackgroundHuman bocavirus 1 (HBoV1) is an important cause of acute respiratory illness (ARI), yet the epidemiology and effect of meteorological conditions on infection is not fully understood. To investigate the distribution of HBoV1 and determine the effect of meteorological conditions, hospitalized pediatric patients were studied in a subtropical region of China.MethodsSamples from 11,399 hospitalized pediatric patients (≤14 years old), with ARI were tested for HBoV1 and other common respiratory pathogens using real-time PCR, between July 2009 and June 2016. In addition, local meteorological data were collected.ResultsOf the 11,399 patients tested, 5606 (49.2%) were positive for at least one respiratory pathogen. Two hundred forty-eight of 11,399 (2.2%) were positive for HBoV1 infection. Co-infection was common in HBoV1-positive patients (45.2%, 112/248). A significant difference in the prevalence of HBoV1 was found in patients in different age groups (p < 0.001), and the peak prevalence was found in patients aged 7–12 months (4.7%, 56/1203). Two HBoV1 prevalence peaks were found in summer (between June and September) and winter (between November and December). The prevalence of HBoV1 was significantly positively correlated with mean temperature and negatively correlated with mean relative humidity, and the mean temperature in the preceding month had better explanatory power than the current monthly temperature.ConclusionsThis study provides a better understanding of the characteristics of HBoV1 infection in children in subtropical regions. Data from this study provide useful information for the future control and prevention of HBoV1 infections.

Prevalence and Molecular Characterization of Human Bocavirus Detected in Croatian Children with Respiratory Infection

“…The northwest part of Croatia, where the study was conducted, has a temperate climate region. Observed seasonal distribution is similar to the prevalence previously reported for temperate regions, where HBoV1 infection mostly occurs in winter and spring, but different from the HBoV1 epidemics in in subtropical regions [31].…”

Acute Respiratory Infection in Co-Infection Form of Bacteria and Virus, Human Bocavirus with Streptococcus pneumoniae: A Case Report

“…HBoV is one of the prevalent causes in children under two years of age, and its clinical manifestations range from mild respiratory symptoms to pneumonia (13). Coinfections with HBoV is common, and especially, bacterial co-infections can cause severe pneumonia as observed in our patient (9,(14)(15)(16).…”

“…Also, the virus can be detected from respiratory secretions of asymptomatic patients. Most of the published articles and case reports used molecular methods for the detection of HBoV in nasopharyngeal samples, as we did by multiplex PCR (14,16,21). Rapid molecular diagnostic tests help clinicians to make an accurate and quick diagnosis and techniques like multiplex PCR can detect numerous pathogens depicted in a single specimen so, it is advantageous for precise diagnosis of multi-organism infections (16).…”

Presence of Human Bocavirus 1 and other Respiratory Viruses in Children with Lower Respiratory Tract Infection in Latvia

“…For example, a group from China reported that RSV and HRV were the most frequently detected co-infections with HBoV1 (Sun et al, 2018). Also in other studies, RSV, HRV, AdV, MPV, and HEV are mentioned as the most common co-infections with HBoV1 (Wang et al, 2010;Calvo et al, 2016;Liu et al, 2018).…”