A RECENTLY identified virus could be to blame for 1 in 10 serious unidentified lung infections in children. Only two children are known to have died of the disease, but doctors are worried that it could predispose children to asthma, as other respiratory infections do.
The virus, called human metapneumovirus or HMPV, was only discovered last year in the Netherlands. Yet it turns out to be neither new nor rare. Antibodies against it have been found in blood frozen for over 50 years, and the virus has been found to be widespread in Europe and Australia, and may be elsewhere too. 鈥淭his spring in Brisbane, HMPV is the most common respiratory virus in children,鈥� says Theo Sloots of the city鈥檚 Royal Children鈥檚 Hospital.
Only half of childhood respiratory infections severe enough to require hospital admission are ever diagnosed, Sloots says. 鈥淵ear round, HMPV probably accounts for a good 10 per cent of the undiagnosed cases.鈥�
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Sloots鈥檚 team has developed a test that detects one of the virus鈥檚 genes in less than an hour. Hospitals should now routinely test for the virus, Sloots told a meeting of the Australian Society for Microbiology in Melbourne last week.
When HMPV is identified, children should be kept isolated, he says, as is already done with respiratory infections caused by a virus called RSV. There is no treatment but identifying it could prevent unnecessary use of antibiotics, which don鈥檛 work against viruses and only encourage bacteria to become drug-resistant.
However, David Isaacs, a specialist in infectious diseases, warns that even this may not happen. A study at The Children鈥檚 Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, where Isaacs is based, found that even when tests show patients to be infected with the respiratory virus RSV, almost half are still given antibiotics. 鈥淒octors aren鈥檛 very good at making proper use of the information they get,鈥� he says.