Comparative study of clinical and epidemiological characteristics of major pediatric adenovirus epidemics in southern Taiwan

Background Human adenoviruses (HAdV) are important pathogens of pediatric respiratory tract infections in Taiwan. There were two major HAdV epidemics in southern Taiwan in 2011 and 2014, respectively. Methods The demographic, clinical characteristics, and risk factors for hospitalization of pediatric patients with HAdV infection in the two outbreaks were retrospectively compared. The epidemic was defined as > 7% HAdV detection rate for six consecutive weeks. HAdV infection was defined as positive HAdV isolates from respiratory tract specimens. HAdV genotype was determined by PCR-based hexon gene sequencing. Results A total of 1145 pediatric patients were identified (635 cases in 2011; 510 cases in 2014). HAdV genotype 3 and 7 contributed to both epidemics, although the proportion of HAdV3 decreased significantly (64.7% in 2011 to 25.5% in 2014, p  < 0.001) and was replaced by other genotypes (type 1, 4, and 6) in the 2014 epidemic. Among the hospitalized patients, there were more patients hospitalized with bronchopneumonia/or pneumonia in the 2011 epidemic (10.6% vs 5.1%, p  < 0.001), while more patients hospitalized with acute pharyngitis/pharyngoconjunctival fever (63.9% vs. 38.6%, p  < 0.001) in the 2014 epidemic. In both epidemics, hospitalized patients had higher WBC and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels than non-hospitalized patients. Using multivariate regression analysis, underlying disease and elevated CRP levels were independent risk factors for hospitalization in both epidemics. Conclusion There were significant differences in clinical, viral characteristics and risk factors of hospitalization between the 2011 and 2014 epidemics. Understanding changes in the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of HAdV epidemics is important from a public health perspective.