Bacterial Co-infection among hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in Kirkuk city-Iraq
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Abstract
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the cause of coronavirus
disease 2019 (Covid-19), was first reported in China in late 2019 from a zoonotic source. The
majority of Covid-19 cases either are asymptomatic or result in only mild disease. However, in a
substantial percentage of patients, a respiratory illness requiring hospital care develops, and such
infections can progress to critical illness with hypoxemic respiratory failure requiring prolonged
ventilatory support. The prevalence, incidence, and characteristics of bacterial infection in
patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are not
well understood and have been raised as a critical knowledge gap.
Aim of the study: To investigate the incidence of bacterial co-infection of (50) COVID-19
confirmed hospitalized patient with the exploration of demographic, laboratory and clinical
features, descriptive observational study in AL-SHIFA 14 hospital in Kirkuk city, Iraq.
Methods: All 50 patients with a laboratory-confirmed critical (25 case) and severe (25 cases)
COVID-19 were admitted to the wards and RCU in Al-Shiffa-14 Hospital from April 2021 to
end of May 2021. Throat swabs were obtained from patients in RCU and care wards. The
bacteria isolations diagnosis was confirmed using Vitek 2 analyser system in Azadi teaching
hospital. In addition, the haematological and biochemical tests were performed for all the 50
patients at the Al-Shiffa-14 Hospital laboratory.
Results: Older people and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease,
diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop severe and critical
illnesses. Strong correlation of lymphopenia, increased CRP, D-Dimer, ferritin level and poor
clinical outcome with the severity of the disease. Bacterial co-infection was identified, the high
rate of bacterial co-infection registered in this study (94%) matches with other studies
investigating the bacterial co-infection in COVID-19 sever infected patients who admitted in
hospital wards and RCU units with the recording of Staph. Haemolyticus as the most common
bacteria isolated from the critical and severe COVID-19 infected patients throat samples.
Conclusion: Secondary bacterial infection is common with COVID-19 patients and leads to
significant morbidity and mortality, especially in the critical group patients.