HMPV, human metapneumovirus mainly attacks seniors, immunocompromised people and young children.
Discovered at the dawn of the 2000s by Dutch scientists, to date there is no vaccine or medicine. However, the cases continue to increase in the United States.
According to Dr. John Williams, a pediatrician at the University of Pittsburgh, who has spent many years researching a vaccine and treatment for HMPV “this virus is the biggest you’ve ever heard of”.
This pediatrician indicates that it is potentially as dangerous as RSV (respiratory syncytial virus, responsible for bronchiolitis in particular) and as the flu and also just as present.
This year, the number of positive tests is 36% higher than the pre-pandemic average peak. In mid-March, 11% of tests were positive compared to 7% usually. The cases could be significantly more numerous, since the tests are carried out only during hospitalization.
Symptoms
HMPV could look like a flu or a Covid, it manifests itself by coughing, nasal congestion and shortness of breath.
According to the explanation given by the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and reported by our colleagues from Progress, “these symptoms can progress to bronchitis, pneumonia, lower and upper respiratory tract infection”.
Transmission
The virus is transmitted mainly by coughing, sneezing, secretions, by close contact or by touching objects that are infected with HMPV.
A patient infected in the past can be contaminated again, since there is no immunity.
Millions of children infected in 2018 around the world
According to a study published in 2020 in The Lancet global health, in 2018, between 10 and 20 million children under the age of 5 worldwide would have been contaminated with HMPV. This virus would be responsible, for this same year, for 643,000 hospitalizations and 16,100 deaths.
