Human Bocavirus: Developing Evidence for Pathogenicity

Abstract

In this issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases 2 articles by Kesebir and colleagues at Yale–New Haven Hospital and Yale University School of Medicine (New Haven, Connecticut) [ 1] and by Manning and colleagues at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, United Kingdom) [ 2] describe the detection, primarily in hospitalized infants, of human bocavirus (HBoV) in respiratory tract samples obtained during acute lower respiratory tract illness. The human bocavirus, which was first described in September 2005, was discovered by random polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification of pooled respiratory samples obtained from children hospitalized in Sweden [ 3]. The amplicons were sequenced, and several viruses were found, including the human bocavirus, with subsequent identification of sensitive and specific primer sequences. The virus has now been found by at least 9 groups of investigators in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Asia, and Australia [ 3–9]. The most important contribution of the 2 aforementioned studies appearing in this issue of the Journal is that, for the first time, a substantial number of individuals without respiratory symptoms were included as controls, and HBoV either was not found or was found very infrequently in this group of individuals