Influence of COVID-19 pandemic on the virus spectrum in children with respiratory infection in Xuzhou, China: a long-term active surveillance study from 2015 to 2021.

Background: To investigate the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak on the prevalence of respiratory viruses among pediatric patients with acute respiratory infections in Xuzhou from 2015-2021.

Methods: Severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) cases in hospitalized children were collected from 2015-2021 in Xuzhou, China. Influenza virus(IFV), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human parainfluenza virus type 3(hPIV-3), human rhinovirus (hRV), human adenovirus(hAdV), human coronavirus(hCoV) were detected by real-time fluorescence polymerase chain reaction(RT-qPCR), and the results were statistically analyzed by SPSS 23.0 software.

Results: A total of 1663 samples with SARI were collected from 2015-2021, with a male-to-female ratio of 1.67:1 and a total virus detection rate of 38.5% (641/1663). The total detection rate of respiratory viruses decreased from 46.2% (2015-2019) to 36% (2020-2021) under the control measures for COVID-19 (P < 0.01). The three viruses with the highest detection rates changed from hRV, RSV, and hPIV-3 to hRV, RSV, and hCoV. The epidemic trend of hPIV-3 and hAdV was upside down before and after control measures(P < 0.01); however, the epidemic trend of RV and RSV had not changed from 2015 to 2021(P > 0.05). After the control measures, the detection rate of hPIV-3 decreased in all age groups, and the detection rate of hCoV increased in all except the 1 ~ 3 years old group.

Conclusions: Implementing control measures for COVID-19 outbreak curbed the spread of respiratory viruses among children as a whole. However, the epidemic of RV and RSV was not affected by the COVID-19 control policy.