☆ 4.5 Article

Epidemiology, Microbiology and Severity of Bronchiolitis in the First Post-Lockdown Cold Season in Three Different Geographical Areas in Italy: A Prospective, Observational Study

CHILDREN-BASEL (2022)

Journal

CHILDREN-BASEL

Volume 9, Issue 4, Pages -

Publisher

MDPI

DOI: 10.3390/children9040491

Keywords

bronchiolitis; COVID-19; RSV; respiratory syncytial virus; children

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to understand the epidemiology, disease severity, and microbiology of bronchiolitis in Italy during the 2021-2022 cold season, outside of lockdowns. The bronchiolitis season started and peaked earlier than usual, but had a shorter duration. The severity of the disease did not increase compared to previous seasons, and SARS-CoV-2 was rarely a cause of bronchiolitis in children under 24 months of age.

The aim of this study was to understand the epidemiology, disease severity, and microbiology of bronchiolitis in Italy during the 2021-2022 cold season, outside of lockdowns. Before COVID-19, the usual bronchiolitis season in Italy would begin in November and end in April, peaking in February. We performed a prospective observational study in four referral pediatric centers located in different geographical areas in Italy (two in the north, one in the center and one in the south). From 1 July 2021 to 31 January 2022, we collected all new clinical diagnoses of bronchiolitis in children younger than two years of age recording demographic, clinical and microbiological data. A total of 657 children with a clinical diagnosis of bronchiolitis were enrolled; 56% children were admitted and 5.9% required PICU admission. The first cases were detected during the summer, peaking in November 2021 and declining into December 2021 with only a few cases detected in January 2022. RSV was the commonest etiological agent, while SARS-CoV-2 was rarely detected and only since the end of December 2021. Disease severity was similar in children with RSV vs. non-RSV bronchiolitis, and in those with a single infectious agent detected compared with children with co-infections. The 2021-2022 bronchiolitis season in Italy started and peaked earlier than the usual pre-pandemic seasons, but had a shorter duration. Importantly, the current bronchiolitis season was not more severe when data were compared with Italian published data, and SARS-CoV-2 was rarely a cause of bronchiolitis in children younger than 24 months of age.

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Resurgence of Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection During COVID-19 Pandemic Among Children in Shanghai, China

Ran Jia, Lijuan Lu, Liyun Su, Ziyan Lin, Da Gao, Haiyan Lv, Menghua Xu, Pengcheng Liu, Lingfeng Cao, Jin Xu

Summary: This paper analyzed RSV-positive patients in the Children's Hospital of Fudan University from October 2019 to October 2021 and compared the clinical features before and during COVID-19. The study found an atypical upsurge of RSV infection in the late summer of 2021 after a major suppression in 2020. Males and infants aged under 5 months were the main populations infected with RSV. Less severe clinical outcomes were observed in patients during COVID-19 than before the pandemic.

FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY (2022)