Perfil clínico-epidemiológico das infecções respiratórias agudas causadas por metapneumovírus humano em crianças atendidas no Hospital Infantil Albert Sabin - Fortaleza/Ceará

Abstract

The human metapneumovírus (hMPV) is a newly discovered virus that has been considered as one of the most common agents of acute respiratory infections (ARI) virus in childhood. The objectives of this study were: 1) to observe the frequency of infections caused by hMPV among children attending Hospital Infantil Albert Sabin, a major pediatric hospital in Ceará, from January 2006 to December 2007; 2) to describe aspects of seasonality of these infections relating them to the occurrence of rain and the circulation of other respiratory viruses, 3) to describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of patients infected by hMPV, compared with positive and negative patients for other viruses; 4) to evaluate the IFI assay as a method of diagnosis for the detection of hMPV. Nasopharyngeal aspirates were collected from children with symptoms of ARI and submitted to indirect immunofluorescence assays for the detection of the following respiratory viruses: hMPV, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza A and B, adenovirus and parainfluenza 1, 2 and 3. During the 24 months of study, samples were collected from 1276 and respiratory viruses were demonstrated in 380 (29.78%) samples. The hMPV was the second most frequently detected respiratory viruses representing a total of 8.69% of all samples and 29% among the samples positive for the virus analyzed. It was not observed for hMPV a pattern of seasonality or correlation with the rainy season. Most patients positive for hMPV were attended in the emergence (89.2%). The mean age of patients infected by hMPV was 27 months, wich is significantly older than that for VSR (15 months), adenovirus (14 months) and parainfluenza virus 3 (18 months). Among patients infected by hMPV, 53.2% had a diagnosis of infections of the upper airways and 46.7% had a diagnosis of infections of the lower airways. The hMPV infections showed the same spectrum of infections caused by other viruses analyzed. The hMPV associated to more cases of pneumonia that led to the hospitalization of children infected than other viruses analyzed. More than half of these patients used the aerosol / salbutamol as conduct therapy (68.5%). The IFI assay proved to be quite effective as a method of diagnosis for the detection of hMPV in this study