Prevalence of respiratory bacterial co-infection among COVID-19 patients

Abstract

Background and rationale: Since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, the number of cases and deaths increased. Bacterial co-infection was reported as one of the complications associated with increased mortality. This work aimed at exploring and describing the prevalence of respiratory bacterial co-infection among COVID-19 patients in Ain Shams University Isolation Hospitals. Methodology: This study included 160 lower respiratory samples collected from 80 COVID-19 positive patients, and 80 COVID-19-negative patients admitted to Ain Shams University Isolation Hospitals between February and June 2021. Samples were cultured, and all recovered isolates were identified and tested for antibiotic susceptibility using Vitek2C. Results: Our results showed high prevalence of respiratory bacterial infections in males (106/160, 66.2%) than in females (54/160, 33.8%). The age ranged from 25-88 years (mean age 58.24 ± 14.19). In COVID-19-positive patients, 16/80 (20%) samples showed negative bacterial growth, and 64/80 (80%) were positive. In COVID-19-negative patients, 33/80 (41.25%) samples showed negative bacterial growth, and 47 (58.75%) showed bacterial growth. Klebsiella spp. was the most common isolated organism (51/148, 25.9%), followed by Acinetobacter spp. (50/148, 25.4%), and Stenotrophomonas (1/148, 0.5%) was the least common one. As per the Antibiotic susceptibility testing, a high resistance pattern was noticed among the isolated bacteria against all the tested antibiotics. Conclusion: COVID-19-positive patients showed higher positive bacterial growth than COVID-19 patients. Generally, a high resistance pattern was noticed among the isolated bacteria. The obtained results are alarm to the clinicians that they should halt the usage of empirical antimicrobials promptly and resort to culture and antimicrobial susceptibility testing.