Rostad CA, Kanwar N, Yi J, et al. - In this study, whole blood specimens obtained from children presenting to the ED with suspected systemic infections were analyzed to determine the epidemiology of systemic viral infections and their predictive values for excluding serious bacterial infections (SBIs), including bacteremia, meningitis and urinary tract infections (UTIs). Among a total of 1,114 enrolled children, 224 (20.1%) had detection of 245 viruses. Bacteremia, meningitis and UTI frequency was 1.3%, 0% and 10.1% vs 2.9%, 1.3% and 9.7%, respectively, among viral bloodstream-positive patients vs viral bloodstream-negative patients. Children presenting to the ED with suspected systemic infections commonly have viral bloodstream detections. Although there was no significant difference in overall frequencies of SBIs among subjects with and without viral bloodstream detection, combining whole blood viral testing with urinalysis yielded high NPV for excluding SBI.