Influence of COVID-19 pandemic on the virus spectrum in children with respiratory infection in Xuzhou, China: a long-term active surveillance study from 2015 to 2021

Background To investigate the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak on the prevalence of respiratory viruses among pediatric patients with acute respiratory infections in Xuzhou from 2015–2021. Methods Severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) cases in hospitalized children were collected from 2015–2021 in Xuzhou, China. Influenza virus(IFV), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human parainfluenza virus type 3(hPIV-3), human rhinovirus (hRV), human adenovirus(hAdV), human coronavirus(hCoV) were detected by real-time fluorescence polymerase chain reaction(RT-qPCR), and the results were statistically analyzed by SPSS 23.0 software. Results A total of 1663 samples with SARI were collected from 2015–2021, with a male-to-female ratio of 1.67:1 and a total virus detection rate of 38.5% (641/1663). The total detection rate of respiratory viruses decreased from 46.2% (2015–2019) to 36% (2020–2021) under the control measures for COVID-19 ( P < 0.01 ). The three viruses with the highest detection rates changed from hRV, RSV, and hPIV-3 to hRV, RSV, and hCoV. The epidemic trend of hPIV-3 and hAdV was upside down before and after control measures( P < 0.01 ); however, the epidemic trend of RV and RSV had not changed from 2015 to 2021( P > 0.05 ). After the control measures, the detection rate of hPIV-3 decreased in all age groups, and the detection rate of hCoV increased in all except the 1 ~ 3 years old group. Conclusions Implementing control measures for COVID-19 outbreak curbed the spread of respiratory viruses among children as a whole. However, the epidemic of RV and RSV was not affected by the COVID-19 control policy.