Human coronavirus NL63 is not detected in the respiratory tracts of children with acute Kawasaki disease.

Abstract

Kawasaki disease (KD) is a self-limited, systemic vasculitis of children for which an infectious trigger is suspected. Recently, an association between KD and human coronavirus (HCoV)-New Haven (NH) was reported, on the basis of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with primers that also amplified HCoV-NL63. We investigated the possible association between these HCoVs in the respiratory tract and KD by reverse-transcriptase (RT) PCR and viral culture in a geographically and ethnically diverse population. Only 1 (2%) of 48 patients with acute KD was positive by RT-PCR for HCoV-NL63/NH in a nasopharyngeal swab. These data do not support an association between these HCoVs and KD.