Analysis of the population dynamics of pediatric acute respiratory infections caused by viruses (2015-2016)

Introduction: Population dynamics establish how the different viruses interact with each other and how this time relationship changes. Very stationary viruses present less stable but more accumulated interactions and therefore tend to affect a single individual. It is important to know the complex behavior of viral populations that determine acute respiratory infections (ARI) in the general population. Patients and method: The viral etiology of all pediatric patients (<15 years) who came to the emergency room with clinical symptoms compatible with an ARI during the period between January 2015 and December 2016 has been studied. Viral detection has been performed using a commercial technique of molecular genomic amplification type RT-PCR in real time. Results: In this study 10,642 respiratory samples were analyzed (4,323 in 2015 and 6,319 in 2016) with an overall positivity of 47% (42.2% in 2015 and 50.3% in 2016). The number of mixed infections detected was 203 (11.2%) in 2015 and 344 (10.8%) in 2016; totaling 547 cases (10.9%). It has been observed how the percentage of virus detected in each of the months has been varying throughout the year, predominating in winter. The accumulated percentage of mixed infections has varied with each of the different respiratory viruses, with only rhinoviruses and adenoviruses being detected in all months of the year. In no month has it been possible to detect all the viruses simultaneously. In addition to dual mixed infections (two respiratory viruses), triple co-infections (three simultaneous viruses) have also been detected. The number of cases was 65, representing 1.5% of all positive samples. Conclusions: Although it has not yet been demonstrated that mixed viral respiratory infections have a worse evolutionary prognosis on the patients, if the potentiating nature of the lung parenchyma seems evident. Therefore, it is necessary to study and periodically analyze the population dynamics of this type of virus to know the epidemiological trends of the same.