Human bocavirus infections in hospitalized Greek children

Haidopoulou, Katerina; Goutaki, Myrofora; Damianidou, Lambrini; Eboriadou, Maria; Antoniadis, Antonis; Papa, Anna

Prevalence of HBoV in our study (3.3%) was found to be relatively low compared to published data from other parts of the world [2, 4, 6, 9, 10, [13] [14] [15] [16] . However, prevalence rates between 1.5 and 19% have been observed and it is possible that differences of study populations and sampling techniques account for the encountered discrepancies [17] . Although the number of studies since the first description of HBoV is increasing, many of these studies are retrospective on stored samples, or only on samples negative for other pathogens, or on samples collected during a few months and thus suffering from the bias that sampling may be guided from the occurrence of RSV or influenza epidemics. In the present prospective study samples were collected during 1 year and were tested regardless of positivity for another pathogen.