Evaluation of bi-lateral co-infections and antibiotic resistance rates among COVID-19 patients

Authors: Ahmed, Naveed;

Khan, Madiha;

Saleem, Waqas;

Karobari, Mohmed Isaqali;

Mohamed, Roshan Noor;

Heboyan, Artak;

Rabaan, Ali A.;

Mutair, Abbas Al;

Alhumaid, Saad;

Alsadiq, Salman A.;

Bueid, Ahmed S.;

Santali, Eman Y.;

Alestad, Jeehan H.

Source: Antibiotics

Full text

: https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11020276

Abstract

In addition to the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2, bacterial co-infection plays an essential role in the incidence and progression of SARS-CoV-2 infections by increasing the severity of infection, as well as increasing disease symptoms, death rate and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The current study was conducted in a tertiary-care hospital in Lahore, Pakistan, among hospitalized COVID-19 patients to see the prevalence of bacterial co-infections and the AMR rates among different isolated bacteria. Clinical samples for the laboratory diagnosis were collected from 1165 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, of which 423 were found to be positive for various bacterial infections. Most of the isolated bacteria were Gram-negative rods (n = 366), followed by Gram-positive cocci (n = 57). A significant association (p 0.05) was noted between the hospitalized COVID-19 patients and bacterial co-infections. Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) showed high resistance against tetracycline (61.7%), Streptococcus pyogenes against penicillin (100%), E. coli against Amp-clavulanic acid (88.72%), Klebsiella pneumoniae against ampicillin (100%), and Pseudomonas aeruginosa against ciprofloxacin (75.40%). Acinetobacter baumannii was 100% resistant to the majority of tested antibiotics. The prevalence of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) was 14.7%. The topmost symptoms of > 50% of COVID-19 patients were fever, fatigue, dyspnea and chest pain with a significant association (p 0.05) in bacterial co-infected patients. The current study results showed a comparatively high prevalence of AMR, which may become a severe health-related issue in the future. Therefore, strict compliance of antibiotic usage and employment of antibiotic stewardship programs at every public or private institutional level are recommended.

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Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Cite as

Ahmed, N., Khan, M., Saleem, W., Karobari, M., Mohamed, R., Heboyan, A., Rabaan, A., Mutair, A., Alhumaid, S., Alsadiq, S., Bueid, A., Santali, E. & Alestad, J. 2022, 'Evaluation of bi-lateral co-infections and antibiotic resistance rates among COVID-19 patients', Antibiotics, 11(2), pp. 276-. https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11020276

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11020276

Repository URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/79680/