A variety of respiratory viruses found in symptomatic travellers returning from countries with ongoing spread of the new influenza A(H1N1)v virus strain

P Follin; A Lindqvist; K Nyström; M Lindh

doi:10.2807/ese.14.24.19242-en

Rapid communications Open Access

Like 0

Download

A variety of respiratory viruses found in symptomatic travellers returning from countries with ongoing spread of the new influenza A(H1N1)v virus strain

P Follin¹, A Lindqvist¹, K Nyström¹, M Lindh²
View Affiliations Hide Affiliations

Affiliations: ¹ Department of Communicable Disease Prevention and Control, Region Västra Götaland, Sweden ² Department of Virology, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden

Correspondence:
P Follin
per.follin vgregion.se
View Citation Hide Citation

Citation style for this article: Follin P, Lindqvist A, Nyström K, Lindh M. A variety of respiratory viruses found in symptomatic travellers returning from countries with ongoing spread of the new influenza A(H1N1)v virus strain. Euro Surveill. 2009;14(24):pii=19242. https://doi.org/10.2807/ese.14.24.19242-en Received: 11 Jun 2009

Abstract

Clinical specimens from 79 symptomatic individuals with a recent history of travel to countries with verified transmission of influenza A(H1N1)v (North America) were tested with a multiple real-time PCR targeting a broad range of agents that may cause acute respiratory infection. This analysis revealed that besides four cases of influenza A(H1N1)v, other respiratory viruses were diagnosed in almost 60% of the samples. These observations are a reminder that many different viral transmissions occur simultaneously in countries with ongoing spread of influenza A(H1N1)v. The findings demonstrate that the definition of suspected cases by clinical and epidemiological criteria has only a poor capacity for discriminating influenza A(H1N1)v from other viral infections.