Adenovirus Infections in Young Children

The importance of adenovirus in initiating respiratory disease in young children is stressed in this report. The incidence, clinical illness, asymptomatic carriage, and serologic response of acute adenovirus-associated infection are described in a carefully followed cohort of normal children cultured with each episode of febrile respiratory illness. During a 6-year period, 8.2% of 1,416 nasal washings obtained from sick infants and children less than 7 years of age yielded adenovirus. Adenoviruses were isolated from only 1/174 (0.6%) cultures taken from well children. Typing of 98 isolates showed 81% to be types 1 or 2. A greater than or equal to fourfold rise in neutralizing titer was seen in 45/59 (76%) sampled. In a subset of the cohort observed for 2-week periods in a day care setting, 14 of 21 well children (67%) exposed to symptomatic children with adenovirus infection developed febrile respiratory symptoms and shedding of the same serotype within 2 weeks of exposure. This study confirms that adenovirus has a high attack rate and causes significant respiratory disease in young children.