First COVID‐19 lockdown resulted in most respiratory viruses disappearing among hospitalised children, with the exception of rhinoviruses

• Published in: Acta Paediatrica 2022-07, Vol.111 (7), p.1399-1403
• Main Authors: Nenna, Raffaella, Matera, Luigi, Pierangeli, Alessandra, Oliveto, Giuseppe, Viscido, Agnese, Petrarca, Laura, La Regina, Domenico Paolo, Mancino, Enrica, Di Mattia, Greta, Villani, Alberto, Midulla, Fabio
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: acute communicable diseases; Child; Child, Hospitalized; Children; Communicable Disease Control; COVID-19; COVID-19 - epidemiology; COVID-19 - prevention & control; Emergency medical care; face masks; hospitalisation; Humans; Infant; Original; Original & Brief Reports; Pandemics; Respiratory diseases; Respiratory syncytial virus; Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infections - epidemiology; Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infections - prevention & control; Respiratory Syncytial Virus, Human; Respiratory tract diseases; Respiratory Tract Infections - epidemiology; Respiratory Tract Infections - prevention & control; respiratory viruses; Rhinovirus; Shelter in place; social distancing; Viruses
• ISSN: 0803-5253; 1651-2227
• DOI: 10.1111/apa.16326

Aim Emergency room admissions have decreased globally during the COVID‐19 pandemic, particularly for respiratory diseases. We evaluated hospital admissions for respiratory diseases in the first year of the Italian pandemic and compared them with the corresponding period in 2016–2017. Methods The study was carried out at the Sapienza University in Rome, Italy, and covered 9 March to 28 February 2020–2021 and 2016–2017. We tested 85 hospitalised children who were negative for the virus that causes COVID‐19 in 2020–2021 and compared them with 476 hospitalised children from 2016–2017, as we had also tested nasal washing samples for 14 respiratory viruses during that period. Results Hospitalisations for acute respiratory tract infections were 82.2% lower in 2020–2021 than 2016–2017. The respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and several other viruses were detected less frequently during the pandemic. An extraordinary finding was that rhinoviruses remained seasonal. In 2020–2021, we detected a virus in 54.1% of the hospitalised children: rhinoviruses in 41, RSV in 4 and other viruses in 1. This was significantly lower than the 71.6% in 2016–2017: RSV in 130, rhinoviruses in 128 and other viruses in 83. Conclusion Pandemic measures dramatically reduced childhood respiratory infections, particularly RSV, but were less effective at reducing rhinoviruses.