Viral Isolations and Illnesses in Young Infants Attending a Well-Baby Clinic

Abstract

ROUTINE culturing indicates that viruses are rarely recovered from newborn infants in the hospital nursery,^{1 , 2} but are frequently recovered from infants older than six months.^{3 4 5 6} However, few surveys have obtained data on the frequency of viral isolations from infants during the first months after discharge from the hospital nursery.^{2 , 4} In the reported studies many infants from whom viruses were recovered had minor illnesses. However, the frequency of the minor illnesses in the infants from whom viruses were not recovered was rarely indicated.^{1 2 3 4 5 6} The present report describes the frequency of viral isolations and minor illnesses of infants one through six months . . .