New Virus Common Cause of Respiratory Infections

Researchers found it in 12% of sick children

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 28, 2004 (HealthDayNews) -- Metapneumovirus, which was identified just three years ago, causes a lot of colds and more serious respiratory infections in children, a new study finds.

Samples collected from ailing children as far back as 25 years ago show metapneumovirus was responsible for about 12 percent of those infections, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center report in the Jan. 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

That ranks it just behind respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which has been known for decades to cause such illnesses, says Dr. James E. Crowe Jr., an associate professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt and a member of the research team.

"It's actually more important than influenza," Crowe adds.

Metapneumovirus was identified by researchers in the Netherlands in 2001. Studies since then have shown that a large percentage of children pick it up early in life.

The first encounter with metapneumovirus is likely to be the most serious, Crowe says, since the immune system is not acquainted with it; the average age of children in the study was 11.6 months.

But the virus can return, causing a less serious bout of illness, such as a common cold. And it can cause more severe infections in older people whose immune defenses have waned.

Right now, there is not much that doctors can do about metapneumovirus, since there is no drug to treat it and no easily done test to detect it, Crowe acknowledges. The polymer-chain-reaction (PCR) test used in the study is usable "only in a research setting," he says.

Several companies are working on a simpler test, Crowe says.

"One of the first things on everyone's list is a test that would be easier and cheaper to do than PCR," says Dr. Kenneth McIntosh, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and co-author of an accompanying perspective article.

"It would be good to have because it would give a prognosis, and would tell physicians when they don't have to use antibiotics," he says. Antibiotics kill bacteria but don't affect viruses.

"Over the next decade or two, we should see treatments for it," McIntosh says.

"A test would also help us to place children in the hospital in isolation, so they would not transmit the virus to other children," Crowe says.

Metapneumovirus "is highly likely to be spread by secretions," passed literally from hand to hand, "so good hand washing would prevent most of the transmission," he says.

The new study is important because it shows metapneumovirus has been a cause of infection for at least 25 years, McIntosh says.

The study was possible because "whenever we see a child who is ill, we obtain nasal secretions, some of which we have been saving for nearly three decades," Crowe says. "We keep them in a deep freeze and also in a database. This is a unique resource."

Now that the role of metapneumovirus in respiratory infections has been established, "I'm optimistic that a test will be available within two to three years," he says.

More information

Advice about flu, colds and other respiratory infections can be found at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains respiratory syncytial virus.

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