title: The highest prevalence of human metapneumovirus in Ahwaz children accompanied by acute respiratory infections.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The newly described human metapneumovirus (hMPV) has been recently discovered as an etiological agent of acute respiratory infections (ARTI) in infants and children. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of hMPV and its potential role as causative agent of ARTI in Ahwaz children.
  
  
  METHODS
  In the present study, we examined 124 nasal swabs from infants affected by ARTI for the presence of hMPV by RT-PCR technique.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Sixty-eight out of 124 (54.4%) cases were positive for hMPV which is the highest incidence of hMPV ever reported in the world, 94.1% of positive cases belonged to genotype A; whereas no B genotype was detected. Our positive hMPV children were affected by upper (URTI) as well as lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI); however, LARTIs had higher prevalence.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We suggest a probable role of F protein alteration as the causative agent for the highest prevalence of hMPV infection among Ahvaz children.
authors.affiliation: Division of Virology, Ahwaz Jondishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran. arabpour@sums.ac.ir
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Arabpour
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Samarbafzadeh
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Makvandi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shamsizadeh
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Percivalle
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Englud
authors.forename: Seid Mannut
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Latifi
mesh_terms: D012634:Bodily Secretions / Q000821:virology; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007492:Iran / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D029121:Metapneumovirus / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D009666:Nose / Q000821:virology; D018184:Paramyxoviridae Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D012141:Respiratory Tract Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D012367:RNA, Viral