Evaluation of the frequency of Pneumocystis jirovecii occurrence in a group of children hospitalized for acute respiratory infections

Primary infection with Pneumocystis jirovecii in small children may cause inflammation of the respiratory tract which requires hospitalization. Lack of characteristic clinical symptoms makes it impossible to recognize P. jirovecii infections without performing laboratory analyses. Nasopharyngeal swabs from 70 children with respiratory tract infections were screened for fragments of the P. jirovecii genome. Pneumocystis DNA was found in swabs taken from two (2.9%) of the tested children: a newborn who was infected in the hospital and a six month old baby admitted to hospital two days after pneumonia was diagnosed. The obtained results confirm that primary P. jirovecii infections may occur in the form of acute respiratory tract inflammations suggesting a viral infection. In differential diagnosis of Pneumocystis infections in children molecular methods are useful as their high sensitivity makes it possible to analyze samples obtained in a non-invasive way.