HEALTHHuman metapneumovirus plays big role in infant respiratory infectionsScientists say putting a name to the second-most-common viral cause of respiratory illness is an important step toward finding a treatment.By Victoria Stagg Elliott, amednews staff. Feb. 23, 2004. Two or three years into the future, physicians will be able to determine the cause of many common childhood respiratory illnesses. A cure will probably still be a distant concept, but the immediate knowledge may provide much-needed comfort to parents worried about coughing, wheezing, sniffling and feverish children. It may also empower primary care physicians to wave off the demanded antibiotics prescription because the viral cause will be easier to pinpoint. Additionally, then, this knowledge could trigger a slowing of the emergence of antibiotic resistance and reduce incidents of drug-related side effects. This vision of the future comes in the wake of a study in the Jan. 29 New England Journal of Medicine. The report documents that the human metapneumovirus appears to cause 12% of lower and 15% of upper respiratory infections in infants, making it the second-most-common known viral cause of respiratory illness. "Physicians should be very encouraged that researchers are now able to identify one of the most common causes of childhood illness that previously was a frustrating condition [because] in many cases we were not able to identify the virus," said James E. Crowe, Jr. MD, lead author on the paper and associate professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. "This is not an Ebola, an emerging scourge. This has been with us, and now that we know about it, we'll be better prepared to treat patients." This virus, discovered by Dutch scientists in 2001, may also be slightly more serious than others. According to the study, presence of the virus is more strongly associated with asthma exacerbations and middle-ear infections. Also, 2% of children infected are sick enough to be hospitalized. Other studies have suggested that the virus may play a significant role in adult respiratory illnesses, particularly those serious enough to require hospitalization. [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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