Detection of Adenovirus Infection Among Children With Acute Respiratory Disease During 2010-2012 in Shiraz, Iran

Background: Acute respiratory viral infection (ARVI) is a common cause of morbidity and mortality especially in pediatric patients. Among important respiratory pathogens, adenovirus is a most prevalent cause of upper and lower respiratory tract infection. Objectives: The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of adenovirus infection in pediatric patients with respiratory symptoms. Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from November 2010 to February 2012. An in-house nested-PCR was used to detect adenovirus in nasopharyngeal swabs from 328 children with 19 years of age or younger with acute upper respiratory tract symptoms referred to the hospitals affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Results: In this study, 150 (45.73%) and 178 (54.26%) patients were male and female, respectively. Among the patients, 243 (74.08%) patients were hospitalized in Shiraz teaching hospitals with ARVI related symptoms. The most common detected symptoms were fever, cough, and muscular pain. Most infected patients were children older than 5-year-old. According to the statistical analysis by using SPSS software, we did not find significant association between adenovirus infection and the risk factors such as age and sex, except an association with the seasonal time. Conclusions: The results of this study showed that the acute respiratory infection due to adenovirus in Shiraz mostly occurred during November 2011 to February 2012. In contrast to other studies, human adenovirus infection was more prevalent in children aged older than five-year-old. In addition, the infection rate in females was higher than in males.