Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the viral agents and the viral profile in children under 5 years of age who are referred to our hospital due to acute wheezing. The nasal smears of 55 children who were referred to Kagithane State Hospital from now on (KSH) with acute wheezing between November 2009 and March 2010 were analyzed with multiplex PCR and the distribution of respiratory virus detected in these smears was evaluated retrospectively. Out of fifty five children whose nasal smear results were evaluated, 22 (40%) were male and 33 (60%) were female. The age range was 3 months to 5 years. The nasal smears revealed that one patient (2%) had adenovirus, 11 patients (20%) had Rhinovirus A-B, one patient (2%) had Rhinovirus C which is not previously encountered in our country, 5 patients (9%) had RSV-A, 16 patients (29%) had RSV-B and one patient was diagnosed with co-infection of RSV-A and Rhinovirus A-B. This retrospective study is conducted to find out the epidemiologic strategy of viral agents in acute lower respiratory illnesses to modify the treatment protocols and to reduce the mortality which we hope will contribute to the literature.

Key words: Wheezing, lower tract respiratory illness, respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus, rhinovirus.