These recent data underline the lack of knowledge about the biodiversity of HRV strains and their worldwide distribution [14, 17] . Moreover, little is known about the characteristics and diversity of HRVs circulating in a given area in a short period of time. In the present study, we looked for HRVs in a 2-year collection of nasopharyngeal swabs (NPSs) of children with ARI visiting a district hospital in Shanghai, and compared sequences in two regions previously defined for genetic classification of HRV serotypes [13, 15] . Our study showed a high diversity of HRV species and genotypes, and a prevalence of the novel HRV-C species in NPSs of children with bronchitis and pneumonia. This biodiversity appeared to result partly from recombination events in the 59UTR, between HRV-C strains and those close or similar to HRV-A species, which led to the suggested classification of HRV-C into at least two subspecies.