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      Human Metapneumovirus: Insights from a Ten-Year Molecular and Epidemiological Analysis in Germany

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          Abstract

          Human metapneumovirus (HMPV) is a cause of respiratory tract illness at all ages. In this study the epidemiological and molecular diversity among patients of different ages was investigated. Between 2000–2001 and 2009–2010, HMPV was detected in 3% (138/4,549) of samples from outpatients with influenza-like illness with a new, sensitive real-time RT-PCR assay. Several hundred (797) clinical specimens from hospitalized children below the age of 4 years with acute respiratory illness were investigated and HMPV was detected in 11.9% of them. Investigation of outpatients revealed that HMPV infections occurred in individuals of all ages but were most prevalent in children (0–4 years) and the elderly (>60 years). The most present clinical features of HMPV infections were cough, bronchitis, fever/shivers and pneumonia. About two thirds of HMPV-positive samples were detected in February and March throughout the study period. Molecular characterization of HMPV revealed a complex cyclic pattern of group dominance where HMPV subgroup A and B viruses predominated in general for three consecutive seasons. German HMPV represented all genetic lineages including A1, A2, B1, B2, sub-clusters A2a and A2b. For Germany, not only time-dependent circulation of lineages and sub-clusters was observed but also co-circulation of two or three predominant lineages. Two newly emerging amino acid substitutions (positions 223 and 280) of lineage B2 were detected in seven German HMPV sequences. Our study gives new insights into the molecular epidemiology of HMPV in in- and outpatients over a time period of 10 years for the first time. It is one of only few long-term surveillance studies in Europe, and allows comparative molecular analyses of HMPV circulating worldwide.

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          A newly discovered human pneumovirus isolated from young children with respiratory tract disease

          From 28 young children in the Netherlands, we isolated a paramyxovirus that was identified as a tentative new member of the Metapneumovirus genus based on virological data, sequence homology and gene constellation. Previously, avian pneumovirus was the sole member of this recently assigned genus, hence the provisional name for the newly discovered virus: human metapneumovirus. The clinical symptoms of the children from whom the virus was isolated were similar to those caused by human respiratory syncytial virus infection, ranging from upper respiratory tract disease to severe bronchiolitis and pneumonia. Serological studies showed that by the age of five years, virtually all children in the Netherlands have been exposed to human metapneumovirus and that the virus has been circulating in humans for at least 50 years.
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            Human metapneumovirus and lower respiratory tract disease in otherwise healthy infants and children.

            We sought to determine the role of human metapneumovirus in lower respiratory tract illness in previously healthy infants and children. We tested nasal-wash specimens, obtained over a 25-year period from otherwise healthy children presenting with acute respiratory tract illness, for human metapneumovirus. A viral cause other than human metapneumovirus was determined for 279 of 687 visits for acute lower respiratory tract illness (41 percent) by 463 children in a population of 2009 infants and children prospectively seen from 1976 to 2001. There were 408 visits for lower respiratory tract illness by 321 children for which no cause was identified. Of these 321 children, specimens from 248 were available. Forty-nine of these 248 specimens (20 percent) contained human metapneumovirus RNA or viable virus. Thus, 20 percent of all previously virus-negative lower respiratory tract illnesses were attributable to human metapneumovirus, which means that 12 percent of all lower respiratory tract illnesses in this cohort were most likely due to this virus. The mean age of human metapneumovirus-infected children was 11.6 months, the male:female ratio was 1.8:1, 78 percent of illnesses occurred between December and April, and the hospitalization rate was 2 percent. The virus was associated with bronchiolitis in 59 percent of cases, pneumonia in 8 percent, croup in 18 percent, and an exacerbation of asthma in 14 percent. We also detected human metapneumovirus in 15 percent of samples from 261 patients with upper respiratory tract infection but in only 1 of 86 samples from asymptomatic children. Human metapneumovirus infection is a leading cause of respiratory tract infection in the first years of life, with a spectrum of disease similar to that of respiratory syncytial virus. Copyright 2004 Massachusetts Medical Society
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              Virological features and clinical manifestations associated with human metapneumovirus: a new paramyxovirus responsible for acute respiratory-tract infections in all age groups.

              The virological features and clinical findings associated with the new human metapneumovirus (HMPV) were examined retrospectively in Canadian patients hospitalized for various respiratory conditions since 1993. Thirty-eight previously unidentified respiratory viruses isolated from rhesus monkey kindey (LLC-MK2) cells were found to be positive for HMPV by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction, and those strains clustered in 2 phylogenetic groups. Children aged 65 years represented 35.1% and 45.9% of the HMPV-infected cases, respectively. In hospitalized children, the most frequent diagnoses were pneumonitis (66.7%) and bronchiolitis (58.3%), whereas bronchitis and/or bronchospasm (60%) and pneumonitis (40%) were most commonly seen in elderly subjects. Of the 15 patients with pneumonitis, 4 (26.7%) had immunosuppressive conditions and 6 (40%) were infants aged <15 months. These findings suggest that HMPV can be associated with severe lower-respiratory-tract infections in very young children, the elderly, and immunocompromised patients.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1932-6203
                2014
                5 February 2014
                : 9
                : 2
                : e88342
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Division of Influenza Viruses and Other Respiratory Viruses, National Reference Centre for Influenza, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany
                [2 ]Centre for Biological Threats and Special Pathogens, Highly Pathogenic Viruses, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany
                Kliniken der Stadt Köln gGmbH, Germany
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Conceived and designed the experiments: JR KN BS. Performed the experiments: SH JM. Analyzed the data: JR SJ KN. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JR KN AN. Wrote the paper: JR SJ. Critical revision of the manuscript: TW.

                Article
                PONE-D-13-34286
                10.1371/journal.pone.0088342
                3914980
                24505479
                7406be7a-367e-4b16-b893-33c3f01f075d
                Copyright @ 2014

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 16 August 2013
                : 13 January 2014
                Page count
                Pages: 10
                Funding
                The authors have no support or funding to report.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology
                Genetics
                Molecular Genetics
                Gene Identification and Analysis
                Microbiology
                Virology
                Viral Classification
                RNA viruses
                Viral Disease Diagnosis
                Viral Evolution
                Applied Microbiology
                Population Biology
                Epidemiology
                Medicine
                Diagnostic Medicine
                Epidemiology
                Infectious Disease Epidemiology
                Infectious Diseases
                Viral Diseases
                Pulmonology
                Respiratory Infections

                Uncategorized
                Uncategorized

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