“Human Metapneumovirus: The Little-Known Virus with COVID-19-Like Symptoms”

TEXT SIZEAaAa

A virus that causes symptoms similar to colds, flu and Covid-19 has been on the rise in the US, hospitalizing a record number of young children and the elderly.

Runny nose, dry cough, sore throat and fever: the combination of these symptoms would be immediately registered by anyone who lived through the pandemic as either an unfortunate resurgence of COVID-19, a bad cold or the flu.

But there is another little-known virus that shows exactly the same symptoms: human metapneumovirus, abbreviated HMPV or simply MPV.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) respiratory virus surveillance systems, cases of HMPV surged across the country this spring, and hospital intensive care units filled up with sick young children and elderly patients of this virus.

In mid-March, when hospitals saw a peak in recovery, nearly 11 percent of patients tested tested positive for HMPV — a number about 36 percent higher than the average of 7 percent, the pre-pandemic seasonal peak.

According to John V. Williams, a professor of pediatrics, microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh, recent spikes in HMPV detection in the U.S. are “similar to the higher-than-normal case rates of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, and influenza in the fall of 2022 and the winter of 2023,” which followed the pandemic, he wrote in The Conversation.

Is HMPV a new virus?

HMPV is not a new virus. It was discovered by a team of Dutch researchers in 2001 after a year-long mission to identify the unknown causes of acute respiratory infections – the leading cause of death in children under the age of 5 worldwide, according to Euronews Next.

The team tested 28 samples from children in the Netherlands who had been very ill but had not tested positive for any known pathogens.

Studying the samples, the researchers discovered a virus that appeared structurally similar to the paramyxoviridae family — a group of viruses that cause diseases such as measles, mumps and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV — and whose genes were related to avian metapneumovirus, a virus that infects birds.

The researchers gave HMPV the same name as its avian relative, assuming the virus probably jumped from birds to humans and evolved afterwards.

The virus is believed to have circulated among humans completely undetected since at least the 1950s.

How bad is HMPV?

Although many may have had HMPV in their lifetime, they may not have known they had it.

Most people who contract it do not develop serious symptoms and recover within seven to 10 days. Furthermore, the virus is only detected by complex molecular tests performed in hospitals or emergency rooms.

Young children and the elderly are normally the ones who get the worst illnesses after contracting HMPV because they are the most vulnerable to the virus. Their symptoms are treated directly by hospital doctors, as there is no vaccine or antiviral drug for HMPV.

In severe cases, the virus can be fatal.

Other similar viruses remain more dangerous than HMPV, with the incidence of infection and disease with this virus appearing to be substantially lower than that of RSV.