Study of virus isolation from pharyngeal swabs in children with varicella
T. Ozaki, Y. Matsui, Y. Asano, T. Okuno, K. Yamanishi and M. Takahashi
Department of Pediatrics, Showa Hospital, Kohnan, Japan.
We performed virus isolations from the pharyngeal swabs in 117 children
with varicella who were aged from 22 days to 15 years and 70 healthy
children who were aged from 3 months to 15 years, by using human embryonic
lung cell cultures. Viral isolates were confirmed by an indirect
immunofluorescence method or by neutralization with well-characterized
antibodies. Five varicella-zoster virus isolates (4.3%), 23 cytomegalovirus
isolates (19.7%), five herpes simplex virus isolates (4.3%), and one
respiratory syncytial virus isolate (0.9%) were found in the patients with
varicella. Ten cytomegalovirus isolates (14.3%), two herpes simplex virus
isolates (2.9%), one respiratory syncytial virus isolate (1.4%), and one
poliovirus isolate (1.4%) were found in the swabs of the healthy control
children. The varicella-zoster virus isolation rate from the pharyngeal
swabs in children with varicella was low as compared with the rate from
those pharyngeal swabs in the children with cytomegalovirus and herpes
simplex virus. No varicella-zoster virus isolates could be found in the
swabbed materials after filtration (0.45 microns). On the other hand,
cytomegalovirus and herpes simplex virus could be isolated from the
filtrated swabs, as well as from the unfiltrated swabs. The method of
testing by filtration could have affected the results.
