This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Prevalent form of coronavirus linked to URTI
One of the more prevalent forms of coronavirus, HCoV-OC43, mainly caused upper respiratory illness in a population of pediatric patients in Montreal, but was also associated with some lower respiratory diseases, according to study data published online.
Andréanne Jean, MD, of McGill University Health Center in Montreal, and colleaguesretrospectively identified 68 patients who were positive for HCoV-OC43 between December 2009 and December 2010 and compared them with 136 controls. On average, patients with confirmed HCoV-OC43 were younger than controls (mean age, 1.04 years vs. 2.28 years for controls, P=.001), but most patients in both groups were aged younger than 18 months (82% of patients with HCoV-OC43 and 68% of controls). There were also more male patients in both groups.
Jean and colleagues noted some trends of the coronavirus; particularly that the most common symptoms were fever and cough. Also, most illnesses peaked in November.
“Coinfection with other respiratory viruses was associated with lower respiratory tract infections in HCoV-OC43 infected cases, but did not lead to increased rates of hospitalization, admission to intensive care unit or death,” the researchers concluded.
The researchers noted some study limitations — specifically that the sample size was somewhat small, and the results therefore may not be generalizable to larger populations.
Disclosure: Jean reports no relevant financial disclosures.
Collapse