Seasonality and prevalence of respiratory syncytial virus in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with its tropical climate in the past was thought not to house many respiratory viruses, with time and after many outbreaks began researches and surveillance on respiratory viruses circulating in the country. The first was influenza sentinel surveillance which showed that around 10% of suspected samples received were positive for influenza and 90% were negative, therefore a research was needed to find which other virus was present and causing infection in the remaining 90%. This study aimed to screen Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) among those remaining samples in Kinshasa in order to determine the proportion and seasonal factors influencing the virus. The samples used were nasopharyngeal swabs collected from different Influenza surveillance sites in Kinshasa: Kalembelembe, Boyambi, Kinshasa General Hospital, Kingasani Hospital Centre and RVA clinic during the period of January to September 2016. 169 Samples were randomly selected for the research and were chosen regardless of the patient’s age, sex, geographic group and symptoms. Molecular analysis was done to determine if the samples were RSV positive or negative at the National Reference Laboratory (NRL) in Kinshasa using real time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR). 13.6% were positive for RSV. The prevalence was higher in female 65.2% than in male 34.8%, over 95% of RSV infection occurred during the rainy season and among the positive cases 60.9% were from hospitalized patients with severe acute respiratory infection and 39.1% were from influenza-like illness or infection. The largest proportion (78.3%) of RSV positives was found in children under the age of 2 years. This study showed that RSV is found in Kinshasa, DRC at most during the rainy season and tend to fade away during the dry season. Children are the most affected especially those younger than 2 years and RSV was more prevalent in female than in male.