Prevalência e aspectos clínicos relacionados aos subgrupos A e B do vírus respiratório sincicial, em crianças atendidas em Uberlândia, MG

Abstract

Respiratory syncytial virus is well recognized as the most important pathogen accounting for acute respiratory disease in infants and young children, mainly bronchiolitis and pneumonia. Two major antigenic subgroups, A and B, have been identified; however, there is a disagreement between the severity of the disease caused by them. This study investigated a possible association between RSV subgroups and severity of the cases. Reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction was used to characterize 128 RSV nasopharyngeal specimens from children less than five years old experiencing acute respiratory disease. It was possible to subgroup 64.1% samples in RSV A (64) and RSV B (18). Severity was measured by clinical evaluation associated with demographic factors. For RSV A-infected patients, 53.1% were hospitalized, whereas for RSV B it was 27.8%. Around 35.0% of the patients presented risk factors for severity. The hospitalization happened for 47.6% of RSV A patients and for 18.2% of RSV B, for children without risk factors. It was observed a trend for RSV B infection to be milder than RSV A. Even though RSV A infected patients were more likely to require hospitalization than those infected by RSV B, including cases without underlying condition and prematurity, the disease severity could not to be attributed to the RSV subgroups.