Role of viral and bacterial pathogens in causing pneumonia among Western Australian children: a case–control study protocol

Bhuiyan, Mejbah Uddin; Snelling, Thomas L; West, Rachel; Lang, Jurissa; Rahman, Tasmina; Borland, Meredith L; Thornton, Ruth; Kirkham, Lea-Ann; Sikazwe, Chisha; Martin, Andrew C; Richmond, Peter C; Smith, David W; Jaffe, Adam; Blyth, Christopher C

The relationship between nasopharyngeal pathogen load and the disease severity had been previously assessed in data from several pneumonia epidemiological studies. These studies have demonstrated that nasopharyngeal pathogen load could predict the severity of pneumonia in children. A study in the US among infants reported that a higher RSV load was associated with longer hospitalization, respiratory failure and admission to intensive care unit [43] . In Vietnam, children with radiological confirmed pneumonia had higher pneumococcal load compare to children with other respiratory illness and the load of pneumococcus was 15-fold higher in children with viral coinfection compared to no viral coinfection [44] . Other studies in Kenya and the Netherlands reported the higher nasopharyngeal RSV loads in children with severe respiratory infections compared with less severe infections [45, 46] .