Infants Younger Than 6 Months Infected With SARS-CoV-2 Show the Highest Respiratory Viral Loads
Valeria Ochoa, Fernando Erra Díaz, Ezequiel Ramírez, María Clara Fentini, Mauricio Carobene, Jorge Geffner, Lourdes Arruvito, Federico Remes Lenicov, INBIRS COVID-19 Study Group, Alan M. Adamczyk, Sabrina Azzolina, Lucía Baquero, Paula Benencio, Carolina Berini, Mirna Biglione, Lucía Bleichmar, Gonzalo Cabrerizo, Silvia Cassime, Ricardo Cassime, Ana Ceballos, Cintia Cevallos, Alejandro Czernikier, Victoria Delpino, Facundo Di Diego García, Nicolás Ducasa, Mercedes Elizalde, Diego Flichman, Ramiro Gatti, Yanina Ghiglione, Denise Giannone, Claudio Gómez, Virginia González Polo, Natalia Laufer, Luz Leicaj, Yesica Longueira, Alvaro Lopez Malizzia, Ignacio Mazzitelli, Claudia Melucci Ganzarain, Fernando Montesano, Nicolás Morando, Matías Ostrowski, Sandra Pampuro, Ana Paletta, María A. Pando, Federico Penas, Paula Botella Pérez, Claudio Piccardo, Azul Pieralisi, Mónica Pippo, Laura Polo, Florencia Quiroga, Juan Sabatté, Melina Salvatori, Inés Sananes, Vanesa Seery, Micaela Speroni, Gabriela Turk, Augusto Varese, Belén Vecchione, Douglas Vera Aguilar
Abstract
There is a paucity of reports on the characteristics of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in infants, because most studies have grouped infants with older children. We analyzed the viral loads of 45318 SARS-CoV-2-positive nasopharyngeal swab samples obtained in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Infants younger than 6 months presented higher viral loads than any other age group. Children older than 6 months showed significantly lower viral loads, similar to those founds in adults. This observation raises new questions regarding the role of infants in the spreading of SARS-CoV-2 infection.