Bacterial Coinfection and Antibiotic Resistance Profiles among Hospitalised COVID-19 Patients

oleh: Abdulrahman S. Bazaid, Heba Barnawi, Husam Qanash, Ghaida Alsaif, Abdu Aldarhami, Hattan Gattan, Bandar Alharbi, Abdulaziz Alrashidi, Waleed Abu Al-Soud, Safia Moussa, Fayez Alfouzan

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2022-02-01

Deskripsi

While it is reported that COVID-19 patients are more prone to secondary bacterial infections, which are strongly linked to the severity of complications of the disease, bacterial coinfections associated with COVID-19 are not widely studied. This work aimed to investigate the prevalence of bacterial coinfections and associated antibiotic resistance profiles among hospitalised COVID-19 patients. Age, gender, weight, bacterial identities, and antibiotic sensitivity profiles were collected retrospectively for 108 patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and non-ICU ward of a single center in Saudi Arabia. ICU patients (60%) showed a significantly higher percentage of bacterial coinfections in sputum (74%) and blood (38%) samples, compared to non-ICU. <i>Acinetobacter baumannii</i> (56%) and <i>Klebsiella pneumoniae</i> (56%) were the most prevalent bacterial species from ICU patients, presenting with full resistance to all tested antibiotics except colistin. By contrast, samples of non-ICU patients exhibited infections with <i>Escherichia coli</i> (31%) and <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i> (15%) predominantly, with elevated resistance of <i>E. coli</i> to piperacillin/tazobactam and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole. This alarming correlation between multi-drug resistant bacterial coinfection and admission to the ICU requires more attention and precaution with prescribed antibiotics to limit the spread of resistant bacteria and improve therapeutic management.