Short report
Report of two cases of influenza virus A/H1N1v and B co-infection during the 2010/2011 epidemics in the Italian Veneto Region
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* Corresponding author: Giorgio Palù giorgio.palu@unipd.it
- † Equal contributors
1 Department of Histology, Microbiology and Medical Biotechnologies, Division of Microbiology and Virology, University of Padova, Via A. Gabelli 63, Padova 35121, Italy
2 Regional Reference Centre for Infectious Diseases, Microbiology and Virology Unit, Hospital of Padova, Via Giustiniani 2, Padova 35128, Italy
3 Department of Infectious, Parasitic and Immune-mediated Diseases, National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità - ISS), Viale Regina Elena 299, Rome 00161, Italy
Virology Journal 2011, 8:502 doi:10.1186/1743-422X-8-502
Published: 3 November 2011Abstract
From October 2010 to April 2011, in the Italian Veneto Region, 1403 hospitalized patients were tested for influenza virus infection by specific real time RT-PCR. Overall, 327 samples were positive for either influenza A (75%) or B (25%) viruses. Among these positive patients two resulted co-infected by A/H1N1v and B viruses. Even though co-infection with both influenza A and B viruses appears to be a rare event, it occurs naturally and may play a role in epidemiology and pathogenicity. In the present study the two co-infected patients were a transplant recipient immunocompromised adult and a child displaying a severe respiratory illness. The co-infection was confirmed by inoculation of the nasopharyngeal swabs in MDCK.2 cells, followed by immunofluorescence and real time RT-PCR assays. Moreover, in the case of the adult patient, the immune system response against both viruses was assayed by hemoagglutination inhibition test against reference influenza virus strains. Both patients fully recovered from infection, without significant differences with mono-infected patients.