A two year surveillance for influenza and RSV using Real-time PCR among children with acute respiratory infections in Kolkata reveals distinct seasonality of infection

摘要

Background: Respiratory tract infections are one of the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in young children all over the world. Influenza and Respiratory Syncytial viruses (RSV) are the predominant etiology during seasonal epidemics and thus rapid and sensitive molecular tests for screening & timely identification of epidemics are required. In this study, we report comparison of real time PCR (Q-PCR) with conventional RT-PCR for parallel identification of Influenza A or -B and RSV.