[Viral respiratory co-infections in pediatric patients admitted for acute respiratory infection and their impact on clinical severity].

Martínez, Pamela; Cordero, Jaime; Valverde, Cristián; Unanue, Nancy; Dalmazzo, Roberto; Piemonte, Paula; Vergara, Ivonne; Torres, Juan P

INTRODUCTION Respiratory viruses are the leading cause of acute respiratory tract infection (ARI) in children. It has been reported that viral respiratory co-infection could be associated with severe clinical course. OBJECTIVES To describe the frequency of viral co-infection in children admitted for AlRI and evaluate whether this co-infection was associated with more severe clinical course. PATIENTS AND METHODS Prospective, descriptive study in pediatric patients who were hospitalized for ARI, with molecular detection of at least 1 respiratory virus in nasopharyngeal sample studied by PCR-Microarray for 17 respiratory viruses. RESULTS 110 out of 147 patients with detection of > 1 respiratory virus were included. Viral co-infection was detected in 41/110 (37%). 22/110 children (20%) were classified as moderate to severe clinical course and 88/110 (80%) were classified as mild clinical course. In the group of moderate to severe clinical course, viral respiratory co-infection was detected in 6/22 (27.3%), compared to 35/88 (39.8 %) in the mild clinical course group. No statistically significant difference was found regarding the presence of co-infection between groups (p = 0.33). CONCLUSIONS We detected high rates of viral co-infection in children with ARI. It was not possible to demonstrate that viral co-infections were related with severe clinical course in hospitalized children.