Author(s)

Sonnleitner Stefanie^1#, Sonnleitner Sissy^1,2#, Eva Hinterbichler¹, Gernot Walder^1,2*

¹Dr. Gernot Walder GmbH, Medical Laboratory, Department of Virology, Ausservillgraten, Austria.
²Division of Hygiene and Medical Microbiology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.

The recent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic renewed interest in other previously discovered human coronaviruses—the non-severe acute respiratory syndrome human coronavirus (non-SARS hCoVs) and this study is a starting point for a closer investigation of those. With the pandemic behind us we believe it to be important to also examine the current and past respiratory pathogen landscape in the patient population in our care. Therefore, 954 nasopharyngeal swabs of patients with respiratory diseases collected between October 2018 and March 2020 were tested against the pathogens Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Bordetella pertussis, Influenza A and virus, Human metapneumovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, Parainfluenza virus, human Adenovirus and Polyoma virus BK/JC. Swabs negative against these pathogens were further tested for OC43 and 229E by RT-qPCR. Human coronaviruses 229E and OC43 were proven as the causative agents in a considerable number of cases, confirmed by PCR. Overall, our results show that those two non-SARS hCoVs were responsible for 13.9% (11 of 79) of infections with flu-like symptoms of unknown etiology in the study area. In the subsequent seroprevalence study, it was shown that the seroprevalence rate of IgG antibodies against 229E and OC43 was over 50%, indicating that a big part of the population in our study area has been in contact with these non-SARS-CoVs and has built the specific humoral immune response accordingly.

NonSARS Human Coronavirus, hCoV, hCoV OC43, hCoV 229E, Respiratory Pathogens

Stefanie, S. , Sissy, S. , Hinterbichler, E. and Walder, G. (2023) Prevalence and Seroprevalence of Non-SARS Human Coronaviruses 229E and OC43 in East Tyrol/Austria. Journal of Biosciences and Medicines, 11, 125-139. doi: 10.4236/jbm.2023.117011.