(Gwangju = International News) Reporter Ryu Yeon-sun = A research paper on the analysis of parainfluenza epidemic trends conducted by the Gwangju Metropolitan City Health and Environment Research Institute was recently published in the international scientific journal ‘Viruses (Impact factor: 5.818)’.
The city health and environment research institute is conducting an ‘influenza and respiratory virus monitoring project’ throughout the year together with the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This paper contains the results of analyzing the molecular epidemiologic relationship of parainfluenza virus isolated from parainfluenza-positive patients for the past four years from 2018 to 2021 before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Parainfluenza virus is a virus that causes upper and lower respiratory tract infections, and is known not only to be the most common cause of laryngitis in children, but also to cause immunosuppression in adults and severe pneumonia in patients.
In the research paper, it was confirmed that parainfluenza, which was prevalent in 2018 and March-July 2019, before Corona 19, did not spread in 2020 due to the Corona 19 quarantine guidelines, but became prevalent in September-November 2021.
In particular, it was revealed that before Corona 19, viruses with various genotypes were prevalent in Gwangju, whereas in 2021, a new, previously unidentified single type of virus was prevalent in Gwangju.
Kim Seon-hee, head of the Department of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Institute of Health and Environment, said, “Through this study, we can see that the introduction of a new type of virus can disrupt the community’s collective immune system and lead to a cluster outbreak, causing great socioeconomic loss, and continuous monitoring of respiratory infectious disease pathogens. I have reaffirmed the need for it,” he said.