Article ID: JJID.2022.255
Common Human Coronaviruses (HCoVs) (NL63, HKU1, 229E, and OC43) circulate worldwide and cause respiratory tract infections. Epidemiologic study of HCoVs paramount importance since the disease burden and its trajectory in years has not been well addressed in adults. Here, we aimed to describe the burden of HCoVs in a hospital setting over five years before the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a retrospective study among patients (>18 years) between Jan 1, 2015, and Jan 1, 2020, whose respiratory specimens were tested by multiplex RT-PCR. In total, 7861 respiratory samples (4540 patients) were included; 38% tested positive for any respiratory viruses. Of these, 212 (12.2%) samples were positive for HCoVs, and their co-infection with other respiratory viruses was 30.6%. Rhinovirus (RV) (27.6%) was the most common co-infection for all three HCoVs. The overall prevalence of HCoVs tended to be the highest in the winter (40.9%). Patients aged ≥60 years had the highest prevalence of overall HCoVs (39.7%). Given the duration and the large sample size, this study from Turkey is one of the largest to date among adults in the literature. These epidemiological data and molecular surveillance HCoVs have important implications for the control and prevention of respiratory infection.
