Human Coronavirus NL63 Is Not Detected in the Respiratory Tracts of Children with Acute Kawasaki Disease

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