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Background: Human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) is an important cause of acute respiratory infection, especially in children. Few studies have investigated molecular epidemiology of hRSV infection in Thailand. The aims of this study were to investigate the prevalence and genotype diversity of hRSV in children with acute respiratory infection (ARI) in Thailand., Methods: A total of 383 nasopharyngeal swabs collected from children with ARI from October 2020 to September 2021 were screened for hRSV and nucleotide sequences of the hypervariable region 2 (HVR2) of G gene of the detected hRSV were analysed., Results: Of 383 nasopharyngeal swabs, 104 (27.2 %) were positive for hRSV, of which 51 (49.0 %), 43 (41.3 %), and 10 (9.6 %) were hRSV-A, hRSV-B, and untypeable strains, respectively. All hRSV-A and hRSV-B were ON1 genotype and BA9 genotype, respectively. Most of the hRSV strains were detected in the cool months, November 2020 to February 2021. Phylogenetic analysis of the HVR2 sequence of G gene revealed three clusters of hRSV-A (ON1 genotype) and two clusters of hRSV-B (BA9 genotype). The hRSV-A strains in cluster 1 and 3 were closely related to the hRSV-A reference strains reported previously from other regions of Thailand whereas those in cluster 2 were closely related to the hRSV-A reference strains reported previously from Europe and Africa. For the hRSV-B strains, both clusters 1 and 2 were closely related to the hRSV-B reference strains reported previously from Europe, Australia, and Taiwan. The predicted N- and O-linked glycosylation sites were found along the length of HVR2 of G protein, mostly in the hRSV-B strains., Conclusions: The ON1 and BA9 were the only two hRSV genotypes that were co-predominant and solely detected in this study. The findings indicated that the ON1 and BA9 are the only two hRSV genotypes currently circulating in children with ARI in northern Thailand., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest There is no conflict of interest to declare., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: To investigate the prevalence of HPV, HPV16, and HPV16 variants in scraped cervical cells cytologically diagnosed as normal cervical cell and in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia II-III and squamous cervical carcinoma in Northeast Thailand., Methods: All samples were subjected to PCR using consensus GP5+/GP6+ primers. HPV16 was genotyped by Southern blot hybridization and reverse line blot hybridization. The HPV16 E6 gene was amplified and sequenced., Results: HPV infections were found in 33.8% of normal cervical cells, 97.3% of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia II-III, and 100% of squamous cervical carcinomas. The prevalence of HPV16 increased significantly with histological grade (normal cervical cell, 16.7%; cervical intraepithelial neoplasia II-III, 38.9%; squamous cervical carcinoma, 75%). The most common variant found was the Asian (As) (58.7%) followed by the European (E) lineage (41.3%). The HPV16 As lineages showed a risk association in 73.9% of squamous cervical cancer and 57.1% of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia II-III, while no increased risk was observed in the E lineages., Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that HPV16, in particular the As variant, was the major causative agent associated with cervical cancer in Northeast Thailand, and our study suggests that some mutations of the E6 gene in this variant, which leads to amino acid changes, may be more carcinogenic.