The Ministry of Health named risk groups for severe course of metapneumovirus

Children and the elderly are the most severely affected by metapneumovirus. This was reported on December 5 by Professor Vladimir Chulanov, chief freelance specialist of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation on infectious diseases.

"The risk of a severe course of infection is exposed to children under five years old, adults over 65 years old, as well as persons suffering from immunodeficiency," - the agency "RIA Novosti" reports the words of the expert.

He noted that the symptoms of metapneumovirus infection are similar to the usual manifestations of acute respiratory viral infections. For example, it can be a cough, runny nose and elevated body temperature. In addition, in adults, the virus manifests itself in the form of ARVI or runs completely asymptomatic, said Chulanov.

According to a specialist of the Ministry of Health, metapneumovirus is characterized by seasonality of morbidity.

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Children and immunocompromised people are at risk

Earlier in the day, candidate of medical sciences, director of the Research Center for Prevention and Treatment of Viral Infections, head of the herpes center of the Moscow State University, immunologist-allergologist, infectious disease specialist Georgy Vikulov told "Izvestia" who is most at risk of infection with metapneumovirus and what is its incubation period.

Also on January 5, China's Office of Disease Control and Prevention, referring to the results of respiratory samples analyzed from December 23 to 29, 2024, reported an outbreak of human metapneumovirus in the country. It noted that human metapneumovirus is actively spreading throughout China and mainly children under 14 years of age are exposed to the disease. People living in the northern provinces of the country are most often infected.