System Maintenance Notice

Please note that maintenance work is scheduled between 4 AM and 5 AM - CET. During this time, you may experience reduced performance. Thanks for your patience.

Publications

Journal Article Epublish 85 citations

PubMed: 35875547 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.938372

Resurgence of Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection During COVID-19 Pandemic Among Children in Shanghai, China.

Front Microbiol 13:938372

Authors: Ran Jia, Lijuan Lu, Liyun Su, Ziyan Lin, Da Gao, Haiyan Lv, Menghua Xu, Pengcheng Liu, Lingfeng Cao, Jin Xu

Affiliations

  • Department of Clinical Laboratory, Children's Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
  • School of Laboratory Medicine and Life Sciences, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
  • School of Laboratory Medicine, Bengbu Medical College, Bengbu, China.
  • Department of Clinical Laboratory, Children's Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Shanghai Institute of Infectious Disease and Biosecurity, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most common pathogen causing acute lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) in children. RSV usually peaks in winter and declines by early spring in China. The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was reported to bring changes to the transmission pattern of respiratory pathogens including RSV. Here in this paper, we analyzed RSV-positive nasopharyngeal aspirates from inpatients in the Children's Hospital of Fudan University from October 2019 to October 2021 and compared the clinical features of the RSV-positive patients before and during COVID-19. We found an atypical upsurge of RSV infection in the late summer of 2021 after a major suppression in 2020. RSV B was the main subtype spreading among children throughout the study. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that all RSV A strains belonged to ON1 genotype and all RSV B strains were BA9 genotype. Deduced amino acid analysis displayed different substitutions in the RSV strains observed before and during COVID-19. Demographic analysis suggested that males and infants aged under 5 months were the main populations infected with RSV by gender and age, respectively. Less severe clinical outcomes were observed in patients during COVID-19 than before the pandemic, especially in RSV B-positive patients. Our findings described the epidemiological changes in RSV infection brought by COVID-19, which further underscored the importance of continuous surveillance of RSV in the shadow of COVID-19 at both local and global scales.

MeSH

Respiratory Syncytial Viruses, Epidemiology, Covid-19, Viruses, Genotype, Pandemics, Infections, Child, Virus Diseases, Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infections

Cited by