In European countries, pediatric respiratory infections are responsible for 30% of all hospital admissions and they represent the 60% of causes of pediatric consultation. Among respiratory diseases, in infants, acute bronchiolitis is the most common lower respiratory tract infections and the leading cause of hospitalization in infants less than 12 months of age. It is mainly caused by Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) but other respiratory viruses can often be involved. Notably, emerging viral infectious diseases originate from (wild) animal reservoirs: among them, respiratory tract viral infections pose great threats worldwide, as exemplified by the ongoing pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. Diseases related to these emerging infectious agents can have major consequences in terms of public health. There is an urgent need for integrated knowledge from a multidisciplinary research approach, including all expertise from the different health specialties (paediatrics, virology and epidemiology) in order to face present and future infectious threats. In this scenario, we hypothesize that respiratory viruses infections are influenced by the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and/or by the behavioural and social interventions adopted to contain the outbreak of the virus. We propose a study on children attending ER with respiratory symptoms with the aims of: establishing the influence of SARS-CoV-2 infection and/or physical distancing on respiratory viruses epidemiology; giving insights into the epidemiology of respiratory viral infections in children; and identifying factors involved in determining children susceptibility to viral infections. The demonstration of the impact of Sars-Cov-2 pandemic would improve the understanding of respiratory infections epidemiology and would inform policy decisions on the containing effects of these strategies.
