Abstract
Background: – Pertussis continues to be a public health concern because of its re-emerging despite high vaccination coverage. Co-infections with respiratory viruses are described with different results and is still unclear if they might cause a more severe disease than B. pertussis alone.
Aim: – To evaluate clinical differences between B. pertussis (BP) infections alone and mixed infections BP+Respiratory Viruses (BP+V).
Methods: - We enrolled 123 infants younger than 180 days (median age 57 days, 62 [50.4%] males), unvaccinated with paroxysmal cough (>5 days), apnea/cyanosis or vomit post-cough, hospitalized at the Pediatric Emergency Department of “Sapienza” University and Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital of Rome (Apr 2013-May 2015). For every patient was performed a RT-PCR on nasal aspirates, for BP and 14 respiratory viruses.
Results: - We compared infants with BP (n=34) with infants BP+V (n=25). The following co infections were detected 9 hRV, 3 hCoV, 2 RSV, 1 AV, 1 hBoV, 1 IV-A, 1 IV-B, 1 hMPV, 1 PIV. Infants with double infection (BP+V) were older than infants with BP (median age 62.0 d [22-109] vs 51.5 [17-119]; p=0.04) and more breastfed than infants with BP (19 [76.0%] vs 15:[44.1%]; p=0.05). No clinical, radiological, and laboratory differences were observed between the two gorps (BP and BP+V).
Conclusions: - 43% of children hospitalized with BP infection had a viral coinfections. From our data we can conclude that a co-infection with a virus do not complicate the course of whooping cough.
- Copyright ©the authors 2016