I’m a paediatrician and killer human metapneumovirus is on the rise – the 5 signs you’re infected

A KILLER virus that spreads rapidly among children is on the rise, a paediatrician has warned.

Human metapneumovirus (HMPV) causes an upper respiratory infection, much like a cold.

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It has many of the same symptoms – like a runny nose, cough and temperature – and similarly worsens during the winter.

But not enough people know about it, according to Dr John Williams, from the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

“It’s the most important virus you’ve never heard of,” the paediatrician said.

Studies show that over the last four years, it was just as prevalent as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and flu in pensioners in hospital.

And HMPV, which can cause killer pneumonia, was the second most common cause of respiratory infections in kids behind RSV in the last 25 years.

Cases then spiked in the US this spring, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At its peak in mid-March, the number of positive tests was 36 per cent higher than the average, pre-pandemic seasonal peak.

But Dr Williams fears it could be far more widespread.

The health expert said that while respiratory infections are the leading cause of death for children around the world, scientists don’t know what causes a large proportion of them.

He told CNN: “They could only identify a virus in people about half the time. And so the question was, ‘OK, what about that other half?'”

While HMPV won’t account for all the unknown viruses, it is likely to be as many as flu and RSV, Dr Williams said.

The problem is that hardly anyone knows it exists, he added.

“Those are the three major viruses,” Dr Williams said.

“Those are the big three in kids and adults, the most likely to put people in the hospital and cause severe disease, most likely to sweep through nursing homes and make older people really sick and even kill them.”

A study in the Lancet Global Health estimated that there were 14.2million HMPV infections in children under the age of five in 2018.

There were also likely more than 16,100 deaths and 643,000 hospitalisations, researchers said.

Worryingly, most people who catch HMPV have no idea as testing outside of hospitals is rare and the key signs of infection are often dismissed as something else.

Symptoms include a runny nose, sore throat, cough, wheezing and a temperature.

Diane Davison, who caught the virus in April but thought it was Covid, described coughing so horrendously she couldn’t talk on the phone.

The 59-year-old entertainment lawyer said: “I couldn’t get out more than a couple of words.

“I would go into violent, violent coughing to the point where I was literally almost throwing up.”

Blood tests confirmed she had HMPV, which Diane had never heard of.