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

Frontiers in Pediatrics

article

Caterina Rizzo¹  Francesco Gesualdo²  Carlo Concato³  Giulia Linardos³  Veronica Bartolucci⁴  Sara Ciampini⁵  Andrea Onetti Muda⁶  Massimiliano Raponi⁷  Maria Chironna⁴  Daniela Loconsole⁴  Elisabetta Pandolfi²  Marta Luisa Ciofi Degli Atti¹  Jojanneke van Summeren⁸  John Paget⁸  Luisa Russo²  Ilaria Campagna²  Ileana Croci² 

[1] Clinical Pathways and Epidemiology, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital;Bambino Gesù Children Hospital;Virology Unit, Laboratory Department, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital;Department of Biomedical Science and Human Oncology, University of Bari;Public Health Service, Local Health Authority Rome 1;Department of Laboratories, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital;Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital IRCCS;Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research

关键词: SARS-CoV2;    ARI;    RSV;    pediatric cases;    epidemiology;    primary care;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fped.2021.620598

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

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.

【 授权许可】

CC BY