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Background: Pulmonary brucellosis (PB) is a unique infection caused by Brucella and it is challenging to diagnose PB accurately for its diverse clinical manifestations. We tried to summarize PB’s features to enhance our awareness of it and offer differential diagnoses in endemic zones by evaluating their demographic characteristics, clinic data, and imaging findings.Methods: The demographic characteristics, clinic data and the imaging findings of 38 patients with PB from January 2011 to January 2020 in Xinjiang Medical University Affiliated First Hospital were presented. Results: The median age were 51 years. The most common clinical manifestations were fever (73.7%). The laboratory data decreased significantly, containing hematocrit (84.2%), hemoglobin (78.9%), red blood cell count (65.8%), eosinophilic count (47.3%). On computed tomography (CT), 27 patients had nodules, 23 (60.5%) interstitial infiltration, 16 (42.1%) consolidation, 15 (39.5%) patchy shadow, and 7 (18.4%) atelectasis. 11 patients had pleural thickening and 10 (26.3%) patients suffered from hydrothorax. 20 (52.6%) patients had lymphadenectasis in the hilum of lung or mediastinum, three pericardial effusion, and 1 pericardial thickening. Conclusion: PB should not be excluded when a patient has chest radiologic abnormalities, meanwhile complain of an atypical high fever and fatigue, especially in the epidemic region.

Background: An outbreak caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has spread globally. However, the viral dynamics, co-infection and their associations with clinical severity, have not been well explored.Methods: We longitudinally enrolled 23 (Five severe-type, ten common-type and eight asymptomatic-type patients) hospitalized 2019-nCov-infected patients in Jiangsu between January 21 and February 11, 2020. Medical records and pharyngeal swab specimens, were collected to analyze the association between viral dynamic and disease severity.Results: Five severe-type, ten common-type and eight asymptomatic-type patients were enrolled. Linear mixed effects models revealed that the common and severe-type patients had a higher level of viral load (3.08 points, 95% CI, 0.51-5.65, P = 0.019; 6.07 points, 95% CI, 2.79-9.35, P < 0.001) and maintained a higher peak viral load ( P = 0.066 and 0.022, respectively), when compared with the asymptomatic group. Viral load shedding among older patients (aged ≥ 60) processed slower than that among younger patients ( P = 0.047). RNA virome sequencing identified two co-infected RNA viruses, Human endogenous retrovirus H (HERV) and Human picobirnavirus (HPBV). Of note, HPBV was detected in one severe-type and two common-type patients, while was not detected in all the asymptomatic cases.Conclusion: Higher viral load was positively associated with disease severity. This finding highlights the importance of monitoring the viral kinetics to identify patients at greater risk of progressing to severe pneumonia.