Background: Respiratory viruses have clinical and epidemiological importance. With the COVID-19 pandemic, interest has focused on SARS-CoV-2, but as a result, the number of samples available for the differential diagnosis of other respiratory viruses has increased.
Study design: Cross-sectional study.
Objective: To describe the epidemiological behavior of respiratory viruses based on a laboratory-based epidemiological surveillance system using data from 2017 to 2023.
Methods: Univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses of data from a laboratory database of respiratory viruses detected by multiplex RT‒qPCR were performed.
Results: A total of 4,632 samples with positive results for at least 1 respiratory virus, not including influenza or SARS-CoV-2, were analyzed. The most common virus detected was respiratory syncytial virus in 1,467 (26.3%) samples, followed by rhinovirus in 1,384 (24.8%) samples. Most of the samples were from children under 5 years of age. The age-adjusted odds ratio (OR) of death for patients infected with parainfluenza virus 4 was 4.1 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 2.0-8.2).
Conclusion: Respiratory syncytial virus and rhinovirus had the highest frequency and proportion of coinfections, whereas parainfluenza virus 4 was associated with an increased risk of death.
Copyright: © 2024 Hernández Bautista et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.