Prevalence and Seasonal Distribution of Respiratory Viruses During the 2014 - 2015 Season in Istanbul

Goktas, Safak; Sirin, Mumtaz Cem

Our study had some limitations that should be mentioned. First, we were unable to obtain accurate inpatient or outpatient data of the cases and thus we could not present the distribution of respiratory viruses according to inpatient and outpatient groups. However, most of our contracted healthcare institutions consisted of local outpatient polyclinics in Istanbul, and a high proportion of the samples may have been collected from outpatients and a minority from inpatients. Second, although multiplex real-time PCR assays are reported to have excellent sensitivity and specificity, there is a possibility of falsepositive or false-negative results. As mentioned above, it may be difficult to diagnose whether a positive nasopharyngeal swab shows the etiology or evidence of nasopharyngeal colonization. Lastly, one year may be considered too short a time for an epidemiologic study, but we think that our preliminary data could provide useful findings for further investigations.