Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is among the last viruses to cause major, predictable worldwide outbreaks of disease and for which no vaccine or broadly effective antiviral drug is available. Annually in the United States, RSV accounts for ∼125 000 hospitalizations, 2.1 million outpatient visits to a pediatrician’s office or an emergency department, and 250 deaths among children in the first ...

PURPOSE Viral infection is the most common aggravating factor for childhood asthma. Asthma may be a risk factor for severe respiratory symptoms in children with lower respiratory tract infections of viral etiology. Influenza A infection enhances Th2-polarization to house dust mites during the acute phase and leads to lung dysfunction in a mouse model. However, there are no data on the relations...

BACKGROUND Human bocavirus is a newly discovered parvovirus. Multiple studies have confirmed the presence of human bocavirus1 (HBoV1) in respiratory tract samples of children. The viral load, presentation of single detection and its role as a causative agent of severe respiratory tract infections have not been thoroughly elucidated. METHODS We investigated the presence of HBoV1 by quantitativ...

Respiratory tract viral infections are associated with the generation of a wide array of pro-inflammatory cytokines, some of which enhance the release of the potent airway smooth muscle spasmogen, endothelin, from respiratory epithelial cells in tissue culture. The aim of this study was to determine whether the content and distribution of immunoreactive endothelin in the intact murine lung is i...

BACKGROUND Infection by pathogenic viruses results in rapid epithelial damage and significantly impacts on the condition of the upper respiratory tract, thus the effects of viral infection may induce changes in microbiota. Thus, we aimed to define the healthy microbiota and the viral pathogen-affected microbiota in the upper respiratory tract. In addition, any association between the type of vi...

Background The roles of viral and atypical pathogens in respiratory tract infection were undervalued. The presented study explored the pathogens and epidemiology of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) among children in Nanjing, China.

Vaccinia virus (VACV) was used as a surrogate of variola virus (VARV) (genus Orthopoxvirus), the causative agent of smallpox, to study Orthopoxvirus infection. VARV is principally transmitted between humans by aerosol droplets. Once inhaled, VARV first infects the respiratory tract where it could encounter surfactant components, such as soluble pattern recognition receptors. Surfactant protein ...

THIS subject is both too large and too small for a short paper. It is too large, in that every respiratory virus infection that man is heir to can afflict travellers of one sort or another. There seems to be no special proneness to such infections in those who travel in contrast to diarrhoeal infections. This is probably because the common viruses of respiratory tract disease are very widely an...

BACKGROUND Lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) often leads to hospitalization, and it was indicated that causative viral infections are underestimated. OBJECTIVES It was our aim to compare the frequency of 8 relevant viruses in 109 hospitalized LRTI patients and 144 healthy controls. METHODS Virus infection was determined by seroconversion and ELISA for anti-virus antibodies in repeate...