Human metapnuemovirus infections in hospitalized children and comparison with other respiratory viruses. 2005-2014 prospective study

García-García, María Luz; Calvo, Cristina; Rey, Cristina; Díaz, Beatriz; Molinero, Maria del Mar; Pozo, Francisco; Casas, Inmaculada

In our series, clinical differences have been found between HMPV infections and other respiratory viruses infections. The comparison with HRSV is relatively frequent in the literature. As in our results, clinical data of both virus infections are very similar. The global burden of HMPV infections is less than HRSV. In Guatemala [21] , HMPV was less prevalent than HRSV (3% vs 41%) in hospitalized children, and HMPV infections were detected in older infants and with less severity. In Egypt [22] the proportion was 4% and 46%, clinical differences wer not found. In our study, the proportion was 5.5% for HMPV and 30.8% for HRSV. The older age of infants with HMPV is consistent in different studies [19, 22, 23] and also in our series. HMPV patients had less frequent hypoxia than HRSV ones, the duration of the hospitalization was shorter and the diagnosis of recurrent wheezing was more frequent. In addition, pneumonia was more common in the HMPV group. Nevertheless, as far as we know, no other authors have specifically compared HMPV infections with other viruses. We compared single HMPV infections with single HRV, single HAdV, and single HBoV cases. The HMPV children were the youngest amongst all of them. Hypoxia and duration of the hospitalization are usually more frequent in HMPV group than in other respiratory viral infections, probably in relation to the lower age of the infants. Pneumonia, a higher rate of leukocytes and C-reactive protein were more frequent in HAdV or HBoV. Recurrent wheezing was more common in HMPV patients. Seasonality was also different because of the characteristic and singular circulation of HMPV with the highest incidence being in March and April.