Frontiers in Pediatrics (May 2021)

Sars-Cov2 Not Detected in a Pediatric Population With Acute Respiratory Infection in Primary Care in Central and Southern Italy From November 2019 to Early March 2020

  • Caterina Rizzo,
  • Daniela Loconsole,
  • Elisabetta Pandolfi,
  • Marta Luisa Ciofi Degli Atti,
  • Jojanneke van Summeren,
  • John Paget,
  • Luisa Russo,
  • Ilaria Campagna,
  • Ileana Croci,
  • Francesco Gesualdo,
  • Carlo Concato,
  • Giulia Linardos,
  • Veronica Bartolucci,
  • Sara Ciampini,
  • Andrea Onetti Muda,
  • Massimiliano Raponi,
  • Maria Chironna

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2021.620598
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9

Abstract

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Background: In December 2019, a novel coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 started circulating in China and this led to a major epidemic in Northern Italy between February and May 2020. Young children (aged <5 years) seem to be less affected by this coronavirus disease (COVID-19) compared to adults, although there is very little information on the circulation of this new virus among children in Italy. We retrospectively tested nasopharyngeal swabs for SARS-CoV-2 in samples collected in young children between November, 2019 and March, 2020 in the context of the RSV ComNet study.Methods: Two networks of primary care pediatricians in Lazio (Central Italy) and Puglia (Southern Italy) collected nasopharyngeal swabs from children, aged <5 years, presenting with symptoms for an acute respiratory infection (ARI). The RSV ComNet study is a multicenter study implemented to estimate the burden of RSV in young children (aged <5 years) in the community. Swabs were sent to a central reference laboratory and tested for 14 respiratory viruses through RT-PCR. All collected samples were retrospectively tested for SARS-CoV-2 using RT-PCR (Istituto Superiore di Sanità protocol).Results: A total of 293 children with ARI were identified in the two participating networks. The highest number of cases were recruited in weeks 51/2019 and 3/2020. The majority of patients (57%) came from the Lazio region. All of the 293 samples tested negative for SARS-Cov2. Rhinovirus was the most frequently detected virus (44%), followed by RSV (41%) and influenza viruses (14%).Conclusions: Our study shows that in Lazio (a region of intermediate SARS-COV-2 incidence) and Puglia (a region of low incidence), the SARS-Cov2 virus did not circulate in a sample of ARI pediatric cases consulting primary care pediatricians between November 2019 and March 2020.

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