Virologic study of acute lower respiratory tract infections in children admitted to the paediatric department of Blida University Hospital, Algeria

Derrar, F.; Izri, K.; Kaddache, C.; Boukari, R.; Hannoun, D.

For each child under 2 years of age hospitalized for ALRTI, a preestablished standard questionnaire was completed (Supplementary Material S2). The infant's identification and the data necessary to meet the study objectives were reported. Then a nasal or nasopharyngeal sample was taken via swab (Supplementary Material S1). Each swab was labelled with the child's full name and was accompanied by the clinical information sheet. Samples were sent to the reference laboratory within 1 week from the day of sampling to be stored at 4°C. Parental consent was obtained before nasal or nasopharyngeal sampling was performed. We studied two main criteria. The first criterion was the proportion of children with identified respiratory tropism virus, both overall and according to different age groups. The second criterion was the proportion of children in whom the following were identified: influenza virus, RSV, rhinovirus, coronavirus, adenovirus, HMPV and parainfluenza virus. For the secondary criterion, for each virus identified, we studied the average positivity rate and its evolution over the study period depending on age and sex.