Abstract
Introduction
Human Rhinovirus (HRV) and Human Parainfluenza virus (HPIV) are the most common viral infections in the respiratory tract. HRV consists of three types: HRV-A, HRV-B and HRV-C, and HPIVs consist of four types: HPIV-1, HPIV-2, HPIV-3 and HPIV-4. Over 90% of the children aged two years had experienced at least one HRV infection, and 13% were infected with HPIV. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of HRV and HPIV among children under five years of age who had severe acute respiratory syndrome and were hospitalized.
Methods
This study used data from the Cambodian National Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) surveillance 2020--2021 using real-time RT‒PCR to detect the HRV and HPIV on 888 respiratory swabs from Angkor Hospital for Children, National Pediatric Hospital, and Kirivong Referral Hospital (RH) among hospitalized children aged under 5 years between January 2020 and December 2021. We used Stata V16 for the data analysis, in which descriptive analysis was used to describe the frequency and percentage of HRV and HPIV infections and patient characteristics. The chi-square test was used to determine the associations between sociodemographic characteristics and HRV and HPIV positivity.
Results
More than sixty percent of the samples (62%) were boys. Among the total samples, 41.8% were from Angkor Hospital for Children, 33.1% were from National Pediatric Hospital, and 25.1% were from Kirivong RH. Closer to one-fifth of the total samples were confirmed to be positive for HRV infection (18.7%), followed by HPIV (3.2%) and coinfection between HRV and HPIV (1.0%). The HRV positive cases were significantly greater at the NPH site (22.1%) than at the Kirivong RH (21.5%) and AHC (14.3%) sites (P = 0.017). The number of HRV cases was the highest among those aged 13–24 months (30.1%), with P ≤0.001. The prevalence of HPIV slightly varied by site, sex and age group but was not significantly different.
Conclusion
This study revealed that acute respiratory tract infections, especially HRVs, are common among children under five years of age, followed by HPIVs. Coinfections involving HRV and HPIV were also observed, although the results were not significant. The spread of HRV has been observed year-round. Continued surveillance for diverse causes of pediatric respiratory illness could inform disease control and prevention program, including rollout of vaccination for preventable diseases.