As a retrospective study shows, in children hospitalized for an infection of the lower respiratory tract caused by a respiratory syncytial virus (SP), serious concomitant bacterial infections are rarely found. Therefore, these children do not need antimicrobial treatment.

Despite this, antibiotics are often prescribed in the treatment of these children, and even intravenously. Dr. Jaime Fergie of Driscoll Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, said the study will help reduce the overuse of antibiotics.

As reported in the April issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, the researchers analyzed 2,396 case histories of young and middle-aged children admitted to hospital for bronchiolitis and / or pneumonia caused by the PC virus in a 7 year old child. period.

It turned out that only 39 children (1.6%) who had originally received antibiotics for possible sepsis or meningitis had positive blood tests or urine tests, but the 12 children with a positive blood culture didn’t had only Staphylococcus epidermidis and Bacillus spr., and only 1.1% of patients actually received serious concomitant bacterial infections upon admission.

The average length of hospital stay was 5.2 days and no children were readmitted for an undiagnosed bacterial infection.

Thus, children with typical signs and symptoms of bronchiolitis caused by the PC virus, as well as showing a positive result in a rapid test for the PC virus antigen, should not be prescribed antimicrobial agents to prevent development of bacterial complications, such as sepsis or meningitis. However, in patients with atypical symptoms and severe course of the disease, laboratory studies should be performed to confirm or exclude the bacterial etiology of the disease, as there is still a low risk of serious concomitant bacterial infection.