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Presence of children in household increases likelihood of viral detection
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Children living in households put each family member at greater risk for viral infection, according to results from the Utah Better Identification of Germs-Longitudinal Viral Epidemiology study — or BIG-LoVE. Larger families have viral infections for up to 87% of the year, although only about half of those infections cause illness, researchers said.
Carrie L. Byington, MD, of the University of Utah, and colleagues conducted the prospective BIG-LoVE study from August 2009 to August 2010 — a period that included the second wave of the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic. The study included 26 households with 108 individuals. Families ranged from single-individual households to families of three to eight people.
Carrie L. Byington
One adult per household was responsible for completing the initial questionnaire and the daily symptom diaries for each family member, which included documenting any symptoms of viral infection. In addition, each household collected weekly nasal swabs, regardless of symptoms. Byington and colleagues analyzed 4,166 of these samples.
Participants reported symptoms in 23% of weeks, according to the researchers. Testing detected a virus in participants in more than 25% of weekly samples.
The researchers found a link between age and viral detection — children aged younger than 5 years were more likely to report symptoms (OR = 2.47; 95% CI, 2.08-2.94) and to have a virus detected (OR = 3.96; 95% CI, 3.35-4.7) than older participants.
Additionally, participants living with children experienced 3 more weeks of virus detection per person compared with single-person households.
Rhinovirus was the most common virus detected, with 93% of the cohort having the virus at least once, the researchers wrote.
Fifty-five percent of weekly viral detections and 44% of viral detection episodes were asymptomatic, Byington and colleagues wrote, and in 17% of cases, viruses were detected for more than 3 weeks.
“These asymptomatic and prolonged detections may confound the interpretation of positive PCR tests for some respiratory viruses in clinical settings,” the investigators wrote. – by Colleen Owens
Disclosure: Byington reports having intellectual property in and receiving royalties from BioFire Diagnostics. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
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