Meteorological factors on the incidence of MP and RSV pneumonia in children

Background Pneumonia is common in children and mostly caused by many pathogens. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the incidence of pediatric mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP) pneumonia and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) pneumonia was associated with meteorological factors in Hangzhou, China. Methods A total of 36500 pneumonia patients were recruited to participate in the study. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected for the detection of MP and RSV using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and direct immunofluorescence (DIF) assays, respectively. We used a distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM) to evaluate the correlations between the MP/RSV incidence and meteorological factors. Results The detection rates of MP and RSV were 18.4% and 10.4%, respectively. There was a positive correlation between temperature and the MP infection rate, but RSV infection rate was negatively associated with temperature. Moreover, the impact of temperature on infection with RSV presented evident lag and cumulative effects. There was also an evident lag effect of temperature on the infection rate of MP; however, there was no evident cumulative effect. Conclusions In this study, the results showed meteorological factors play an important role in the incidence of these two pathogens. All these results can provide the laboratory basis for the early diagnosis and treatment of pneumonia in children.