Human Metapneumovirus Infection in Thai Children

Abstract

Human metapneumovirus (hMPV) associated with clinical respiratory tract infection (RTI) in children was first isolated in the Netherlands. Of 120 Thai paediatric patients with RTI examined, 5 cases (4.2%) showed detectable hMPV based on N-genespecific RT-PCR. All of them were negative for hRSV infection. Aligning the sequences with a reference strain revealed some nucleotide differences, which necessitates future investigation to evaluate clinical significance and genotype variation.