Sars-Cov2 Not Detected in a Pediatric Population With Acute Respiratory Infection in Primary Care in Central and Southern Italy From November 2019 to Early March 2020

Caterina Rizzo; Daniela Loconsole; Elisabetta Pandolfi; Marta Luisa Ciofi Degli Atti; Jojanneke van Summeren; John Paget; Luisa Russo; Ilaria Campagna; Ileana Croci; Francesco Gesualdo; Carlo Concato; Giulia Linardos; Veronica Bartolucci; Sara Ciampini; Andrea Onetti Muda; Massimiliano Raponi; Maria Chironna

doi:10.3389/fped.2021.620598

Sars-Cov2 Not Detected in a Pediatric Population With Acute Respiratory Infection in Primary Care in Central and Southern Italy From November 2019 to Early March 2020

Front Pediatr. 2021 May 11:9:620598. doi: 10.3389/fped.2021.620598. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Caterina Rizzo¹, Daniela Loconsole², Elisabetta Pandolfi³, Marta Luisa Ciofi Degli Atti¹, Jojanneke van Summeren⁴, John Paget⁴, Luisa Russo³, Ilaria Campagna³, Ileana Croci³, Francesco Gesualdo³, Carlo Concato⁵, Giulia Linardos⁵, Veronica Bartolucci², Sara Ciampini⁶, Andrea Onetti Muda⁷, Massimiliano Raponi⁸, Maria Chironna²

Affiliations

¹ Clinical Pathways and Epidemiology, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Rome, Italy.
² Department of Biomedical Science and Human Oncology, University of Bari, Bari, Italy.
³ Multifactorial Disease and Complex Disease Area, Bambino Gesù Children Hospital, Rome, Italy.
⁴ Nivel, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research, Utrecht, Netherlands.
⁵ Virology Unit, Laboratory Department, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Rome, Italy.
⁶ Public Health Service, Local Health Authority Rome 1, Rome, Italy.
⁷ Department of Laboratories, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, Rome, Italy.
⁸ Medical Direction, Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital IRCCS, Rome, Italy.

Abstract

Background: In December 2019, a novel coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 started circulating in China and this led to a major epidemic in Northern Italy between February and May 2020. Young children (aged <5 years) seem to be less affected by this coronavirus disease (COVID-19) compared to adults, although there is very little information on the circulation of this new virus among children in Italy. We retrospectively tested nasopharyngeal swabs for SARS-CoV-2 in samples collected in young children between November, 2019 and March, 2020 in the context of the RSV ComNet study. Methods: Two networks of primary care pediatricians in Lazio (Central Italy) and Puglia (Southern Italy) collected nasopharyngeal swabs from children, aged <5 years, presenting with symptoms for an acute respiratory infection (ARI). The RSV ComNet study is a multicenter study implemented to estimate the burden of RSV in young children (aged <5 years) in the community. Swabs were sent to a central reference laboratory and tested for 14 respiratory viruses through RT-PCR. All collected samples were retrospectively tested for SARS-CoV-2 using RT-PCR (Istituto Superiore di Sanità protocol). Results: A total of 293 children with ARI were identified in the two participating networks. The highest number of cases were recruited in weeks 51/2019 and 3/2020. The majority of patients (57%) came from the Lazio region. All of the 293 samples tested negative for SARS-Cov2. Rhinovirus was the most frequently detected virus (44%), followed by RSV (41%) and influenza viruses (14%). Conclusions: Our study shows that in Lazio (a region of intermediate SARS-COV-2 incidence) and Puglia (a region of low incidence), the SARS-Cov2 virus did not circulate in a sample of ARI pediatric cases consulting primary care pediatricians between November 2019 and March 2020.

Keywords: ARI; RSV; SARS-CoV2; epidemiology; pediatric cases; primary care.