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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Virol.
Sec. Viral Disease Investigation
Volume 4 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fviro.2024.1462907

Molecular characterization of human adenovirus associated with pediatric severe acute respiratory infections in a tertiary care hospital in North East India

Provisionally accepted
Reema Nath Reema Nath 1Gargi Choudhury Gargi Choudhury 1Arpita Gogoi Arpita Gogoi 1Neelanjana Sarmah Neelanjana Sarmah 2Neelakshi Bhattacharya Neelakshi Bhattacharya 1Aktarul I. Siddique Aktarul I. Siddique 2Rahul Neog Rahul Neog 1Mousumi Dutta Mousumi Dutta 2Aniruddha Jakharia Aniruddha Jakharia 2Biswajyoti Borkakoty Biswajyoti Borkakoty 2*
  • 1 Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh, Assam, India
  • 2 Regional Medical Research Centre (ICMR), Dibrugarh, India

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The present study explored the molecular characterization of human Adenovirus (HAdV) and its strains among hospitalized SARI cases in the pediatric unit of a tertiary care hospital inNorth-East India.Nasal and throat swabs were collected from 70 patients of Paediatric Unit, of a tertiary hospital in NE India from April 2023-October 2023. The samples were screened for the presence of HAdV using an adenovirus-specific Real-Time PCR Kit. For molecular characterization, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) was performed by targeting the hexon gene of HAdV followed by post-sequencing analysis.Overall, 18.57% (13/70) of samples were positive for HAdV. In context of the severity of illness, 3/13 adenovirus-positive patients (23.07%) died after hospitalization, had severe pneumonia among which two were of less than one year of age. Molecular characterization using NGS indicated that 4/13 individuals were infected with HAdV-B type 3 and 5/13 patients were infected with HAdV type 7. Notably, 4/7 cases of severe pneumonia were under five years of age and associated with HAdV type 7 infection. The ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous mutation (dN/dS) was comparatively low in HAdV type 7 positive samples (dN/dS=0.31). No non-synonymous mutation was observed in HAdV-B type 3 positive samples. The higher neutrophil percentage among the death cases suggested an acute immune response.The study demonstrated HAdV type 7 and HAdV-B type 3 as strains associated with paediatric SARI cases from April 2023-October 2023. Further, HAdV type 7 infection was primarily linked with lower respiratory tract infections mainly severe pneumonia.

    Keywords: severe acute respiratory infections, SARI, pediatric, adenovirus, HAdV, Pneumonia, Ari, Assam

    Received: 10 Jul 2024; Accepted: 27 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Nath, Choudhury, Gogoi, Sarmah, Bhattacharya, Siddique, Neog, Dutta, Jakharia and Borkakoty. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Biswajyoti Borkakoty, Regional Medical Research Centre (ICMR), Dibrugarh, India

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