High prevalence of Rhinovirus C infection in pediatric patients with acute respiratory infection in Lima, Peru

Abstract

Purpose: Acute respiratory infections (ARIs) remain the leading cause of death in children in Peru; however, the epidemiology of many respiratory pathogens has not been described. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of Rhinovirus and its most common genotypes in nasopharyngeal swab samples of children with a clinical diagnosis of acute respiratory infection (ARI) in Lima, Peru. Methods & Materials: We performed a secondary analysis on nasopharyngeal swab samples collected from a cross-sectional study in children younger than 17 years old with a clinical diagnosis of ARI from the Hospital Nacional Cayetano Heredia between the years 2009-2010 in Lima, Peru. The original study recruited 767 hospitalized patients with ARI; however, due to conservation of the samples only 559 samples were included in the current study. The detection of Rhinovirus (RV) and their specific genotypes (RVA, RVB and RVC) was performed by RT-PCR. Epidemiological and clinical characteristics were registered using the clinical charts. Results: A total of 234 (41.86%) cases were diagnosed with RV, of which 73.07% were RVC, 16.67% were RVB and 10.26% were RVA. Infections caused by RV were more common in male patients (57.26%) and in the 0 - 5 months group (48.72%). The group with the least cases detected was 11- 17 years old (3.76%). The 88.46% (207/234) of positive cases for RV were hospitalized. The most common clinical symptoms found in the present study were cough 73.08% (171/234), followed by fever 68.80% (161/234), rhinorrea 67.95% (159/234) and respiratory distress 61.54% (144/234). An association between RVC infection and some signs and symptoms were found: cough (p= 0.012), wheezing (p=0.003) and headache (p=0.030). A peak in the cases of infections was observed in March (42 cases of RV and 32 RVC) and June (38 cases of RV and 27 RVC). Conclusion: In conclusion, we found a high prevalence of Rhinovirus in pediatric patients, being RVC the most common genotype. The majority of cases corresponded to male pediatric patients younger than 6 months old. A peak in the cases of infections was observed in March and June, which corresponds to the fall season in Peru.