Introduction
ARTI is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in young
children.1 In 2015, 138 million ARTI cases, 22 million
severe ARTI cases and 0.9 million ARTI deaths occurred globally. The
majority of ARTI can be attributed to viral infection, and among diverse
respiratory viruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), ADV, influenza
(Flu) and parainfluenza virus (PIV) are the most common
ones.2-5 According to WHO statistics, RSV infection
causes 3.2 million people to be hospitalized, and 1/15 of them
eventually die.6 Flu, with an obvious seasonality in
positive infection rate, accounts for 7% of ARTI cases, 5% of ARTI
hospital admissions, and 4% of ARTI deaths in children <5
years.7 ADV infection can be seen all the year round,
accounting for 5% to 10% of lower respiratory tract infections in
children.8
After the outbreak of SARS in 2003, China Information System for Disease
Control and Prevention (CISDCP), the notifiable disease reporting
system, was overhauled. However, the sudden emergence of SARS-CoV-2,
highlighted new threats and need for more effective
surveillance.9 The real time broadcast of virulent
viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 during the outbreak raised the awareness that
the epidemic of common clinical respiratory viruses such as RSV, ADV and
Flu should also be monitored and reported because they also cause great
health burden. Moreover, the broadcast of many infectious diseases often
covered the overall situation of the whole country, lacking epidemic
situation in specific provinces or cities. In addition, the data
obtained were often confirmed positive severe cases reported by local
medical institutions, but many mild outpatient cases have not been
included, resulting in the loss of some positive data. Therefore, it’s
quite important to review and update the epidemiological characteristics
of respiratory viruses in our region.
A comprehensive and up-to-date epidemiological data on viral ARTI would
be vital for clinical management especially in warning the possible time
of the next outbreak of the respiratory viruses.10Furthermore, it provides clinicians with priority for virus detection in
children, because early identification of virus can reduce the treatment
time by 2.5 to 4 days.11 Therefore, we conducted a
retrospective study on the detection results of respiratory viruses in
children with ARTI, aiming to determine the etiologies of viral ARTI in
west China. Through the analysis of the prevalence of the seven
respiratory viruses in the past two years, we want to find out the
susceptible population of respiratory viruses, the common types of
viruses, the epidemic season and the changes of the viral positive rate
before and during the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2.