Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of respiratory syncytial virus and influenza infections in hospitalized children before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Central China

作者：Lingshuang Ren, Li Lin, Hua Zhang, Qianli Wang, Yibing Cheng, Qin Liu, Bing Fang, Linsen Xie, Meng Wang, Juan Yang, Jinxin Guo, Tianchen Zhang, Hongkai Lian, Jiangtao Wang, Hongjie Yu · 发表于：Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1111/irv.13103 · 被引用次数：66 · 研究领域：Respiratory viral infections research、COVID-19 Clinical Research Studies、Influenza Virus Research Studies

Background: Globally, the epidemiology of non-SARS-CoV-2 respiratory viruses like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza virus was remarkably influenced by the implementation of non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study explored the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of pediatric patients hospitalized with RSV or influenza infection before and during the pandemic after relaxation of NPIs in central China. Methods: This hospital-based prospective case-series study screened pediatric inpatients (age ≤ 14 years) enrolled with acute respiratory infections (ARI) for RSV or influenza infection from 2018 to 2021. The changes in positivity rates of viral detection, epidemiological, and clinical characteristics were analyzed and compared. Results: Median ages of all eligible ARI patients from 2018-2019 were younger than those from 2020-2021, so were ages of cases infected with RSV or influenza (RSV: 4.2 months vs. 7.2 months; influenza: 27.3 months vs. 37.0 months). Where the positivity rate for influenza was considerably decreased in 2020-2021 (1.4%, 27/1964) as compared with 2018-2019 (2.9%, 94/3275, P < 0.05), it was increased for RSV (11.4% [372/3275] vs. 13.3% [262/1964], P < 0.05) in the same period. The number of severe cases for both RSV and influenza infection were also decreased in 2020-2021 compared with 2018-2019. Conclusions: The implemented NPIs have had varied impacts on common respiratory viruses. A more effecti...