There's no question that even within the medical community, a lot of physicians are just not aware of how common hMPV is. As clinical testing has become more available, I've had people say to me, with surprise, 'I had a patient in my ICU with metapneumovirus last week. It's real, and I never believed it before.' Until people see it themselves, I think they don't totally believe the burden.
The Chinese have become quite advanced at molecular diagnostics for respiratory viruses and they're doing a lot of public health surveillance, more than many other countries. I think what we may be seeing is that they're doing an especially good job at this, and so finding that metapneumovirus is more common than we used to realize.
Williams believes that the current spike of interest in hMPV could have positive consequences for public health. Right now, he says that hMPV can only be detected as part of a so-called multiplex panel, a diagnostic that checks for the presence of up to 25 different respiratory viruses, at a cost of around $200 per patient.
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