RESEARCH ARTICLE Aetiology of Acute Respiratory Tract Infections in Hospitalised Children in Cyprus

In order to improve clinical management and prevention of viral infections in hospitalised children improved etiological insight is needed. The aim of the present study was to assess the spectrum of respiratory viral pathogens in children admitted to hospital with acute respi-ratory tract infections in Cyprus. For this purpose nasopharyngeal swab samples from 424 children less than 12 years of age with acute respiratory tract infections were collected over three epidemic seasons and were analysed for the presence of the most common 15 respi-ratory viruses. A viral pathogen was identified in 86 % of the samples, with multiple infections being observed in almost 20 % of the samples. The most frequently detected viruses were RSV (30.4%) and Rhinovirus (27.4%). RSV exhibited a clear seasonality with marked peaks in January/February, while rhinovirus infections did not exhibit a pronounced season-ality being detected almost throughout the year. While RSV and PIV3 incidence decreased significantly with age, the opposite was observed for influenza A and B as well as adenovi-rus infections. The data presented expand our understanding of the epidemiology of viral respiratory tract infections in Cypriot children and will be helpful to the clinicians and researchers interested in the treatment and control of viral respiratory tract infections