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

• Published in: Microorganisms (Basel) Vol. 10; no. 3; p. 495
• Main Authors: Bazaid, Abdulrahman S., Barnawi, Heba, Qanash, Husam, Alsaif, Ghaida, Aldarhami, Abdu, Gattan, Hattan, Alharbi, Bandar, Alrashidi, Abdulaziz, Al-Soud, Waleed Abu, Moussa, Safia, Alfouzan, Fayez
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 23.02.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Acinetobacter baumannii; Antibiotic resistance; Antibiotics; Antimicrobial surveillance; Bacteria; Bacterial diseases; Bacterial infections; blood; Colistin; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 infection; Demographics; Disease management; Disease transmission; Drug resistance; E coli; Escherichia coli; gender; Gram-positive bacteria; Klebsiella; Klebsiella pneumoniae; Laboratories; mixed infection; multi-drug resistant bacteria; Multidrug resistance; multiple drug resistance; Nosocomial infections; Patients; Piperacillin; Pseudomonas aeruginosa; resistance; Saudi Arabia; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Sputum; Statistical analysis; Sulfamethoxazole; Tazobactam; therapeutics; Trimethoprim; Urine; Viral infections; Saudi Arabia; United Kingdom > UK; United States > US; COVID-19; antibiotics; multi-drug resistant bacteria; resistance; Antimicrobial surveillance
• ISSN: 2076-2607; 2076-2607
• DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms10030495

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. Acinetobacter baumannii (56%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (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 Escherichia coli (31%) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (15%) predominantly, with elevated resistance of E. coli 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.