Rumor Refutation: 3 Essential Points About hMPV

Rumor 1: This is a new virus just like the SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) !

/✗: Not a New Virus, Discovered and Named Over Two Decades Ago

More than 22 years ago, a virus team in the Netherlands published a paper stating that they had isolated a virus with clinical symptoms similar to those of human respiratory syncytial virus infection, and named it human metapneumovirus (hMPV).

The article mentioned that serological studies indicated that almost all Dutch children had been exposed to hMPV before age 5, and that the virus had been circulating in humans for at least 50 years. Therefore, there is no need for people to be misled by clickbait headlines and panic, mistaking hMPV as a new virus.

Rumor 2: The mortality rate of this virus infection is 43% after 100 days.

/✗: The concept has been misrepresented; the mortality rate is not 43%!

The widely circulated data online claiming a “43% mortality rate 100 days after infection” has been subject to a concept swap. In fact, this figure originates from a study published in the United States in 2013. The study focused on patients who had undergone hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, a group with weakened immune systems and a very high severity rate of hMPV infection, with a 100-day mortality rate as high as 43%.

In general, the clinical manifestations of hMPV infection in the average person are usually mild, and may include respiratory symptoms such as cough, fever, and nasal congestion. These symptoms are indistinguishable from those caused by other common respiratory viruses such as influenza, making it difficult for us to determine whether we are infected with hMPV on our own. In such cases, PCR testing of respiratory specimens (such as nasopharyngeal swabs and oropharyngeal swabs) can be used to determine whether an individual is infected with hMPV.