Respiratory infections in children up to two years of age on prophylaxis with palivizumab.

Objective: To identify the viruses involved in acute respiratory tract infections and to analyze the rates of hospitalization and death in children on palivizumab prophylaxis.

Methods: Prospective cohort of 198 infants up to one year old who were born before 29 weeks of gestational age and infants under two years old with hemodynamically unstable cardiopathy or chronic pulmonary disease who received prophylactic palivizumab against severe respiratory syncytial virus infections in 2008. During the study period, in each episode of acute respiratory tract infection, nasopharyngeal aspirate was collected to identify respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus, parainfluenza 1, 2 and 3, influenza A and B by direct immunofluorescence, rhinovirus and metapneumovirus by polymerase chain reaction preceded by reverse transcription.

Morbimortality of pandemic influenza A H1N1 infection in kidney transplant recipients requiring hospitalization: a comparative analysis with nonimmunocompromised patients.

Background: Clinical and epidemiological data of pandemic influenza A H1N1 infection in solid-organ transplant recipients have been described, but scarce data compare these outcomes with nonimmunocompromised patients.

Methods: We retrospectively reviewed and compared the clinical presentation, morbidity, and mortality of all kidney transplant (KT) and nonimmunocompromised (non-KT) patients admitted for at least 12 hr with a diagnosis of pandemic influenza A H1N1 infection in a single hospital complex during the 2009 pandemic.

Results: There were 22 patients in the KT group (29.