Frequency of human bocavirus respiratory infections among at-risk patients in São Paulo, Brazil

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Human Bocavirus (HBoV) has been described since 2005 as an etiological agent of respiratory virus infections. From 2001 to 2008 we investigated the etiology of HBoV among adults and children in different groups at risk of presenting complications arising from acute respiratory infection, the investigation was carried out in a tertiary hospital health care system in Brazil. METHODS: HBoV DNA was assayed in 598 respiratory samples from community and hospitalized patients by PCR. RESULTS: Of the 598 tested samples, 2.44% (8/328) of children, including five children with heart disease, and 0.4% (1/270) of adult bone-marrow-transplant were HBoV positive. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggested lower HBoV frequency among different at-risk patients and highlights the need to better understand the real role of HBoV among acute respiratory symptomatic patients.