Two Outbreaks of Severe Respiratory Disease in Nursing Homes Associated with Rhinovirus

Abstract

These investigations suggest that rhinoviruses may be an underrecognized cause of respiratory outbreaks in nursing homes, capable of causing pneumonia and perhaps death.

Viral etiology among the elderly presenting acute respiratory infection during the influenza season

“…In two studies conducted at nursing homes and long-term care facilities for the elderly, outbreaks were described with mortality rates varying of 6 to 21%. In both studies, the deaths were directly attributed to acute infection caused by HRV 6,18 . HRV phylogenetic analyses show a distribution of groups coherent with the literature.…”

Clinical presentation and response to treatment of novel influenza A H1N1 in a university-based summer camp population

“…There is a well-documented risk of transmission of viral respiratory infections to persons living in close contact with each other including families, nursing homes residents, and recruits on military bases. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] In April 2009, the CDC confirmed eight cases of novel influenza A H1N1 in Texas and California. 8 Since then, the number of cases has escalated worldwide and the WHO declared a pandemic alert level of six on June 11, 2009.…”

5′ Noncoding Region Alone Does Not Unequivocally Determine Genetic Type of Human Rhinovirus Strains

“…Our motivation to develop a 5Ј NCR assay was largely due to our interest in having a protocol to allow broad and sensitive detection and typing of HRVs for molecular epidemiology and surveillance. Detection and typing of HRVs can shed light on the contribution of specific serotypes of HRVs to more severe clinical outcomes associated with HRV infection, including asthma exacerbation (6,14,15) and lower respiratory infections (3,5), some of which have had fatal outcomes (4,8,12,17). The discovery of novel strains that coincide with the novel HRV A2/"C" strains (1, 10, 13) as well as a potential novel genogroup of HRV (7,11), which we will refer to in this article as HRV "D" to distinguish it from the currently proposed HRV "C", was a fortuitous and exciting finding from the evaluation of our novel assay on field isolates.…”