Bacterial coinfection among coronavirus disease 2019 patient groups: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis

• Main Authors: S. Soltani, S. Faramarzi, M. Zandi, R. Shahbahrami, A. Jafarpour, S. Akhavan Rezayat, I. Pakzad, F. Abdi, P. Malekifar, R. Pakzad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-09-01
• Series: New Microbes and New Infections
• Subjects: Coinfection; coronavirus; COVID-19; meta-analysis; systematics review
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2052297521000743

The pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 raised the attention towards bacterial coinfection and its role in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disease. This study aims to systematically review and identify the pooled prevalence of bacterial coinfection in the related articles. A comprehensive search was conducted in international databases, including MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, and Embase, to identify the articles on the prevalence of bacterial coinfections in COIVD-19 patients from 1 December 2019 until 30 December 2020. All observational epidemiological studies that evaluated the prevalence of bacterial coinfections in patients with COVID-19 were included without any restriction. Forty-two studies including a total sample size of 54,695 were included in the analysis. The pooled estimate for the prevalence of bacterial coinfections was 20.97% (95% CI: 15.95–26.46), and the pooled prevalence of bacterial coinfections was 5.20% (95% CI: 2.39–8.91) for respiratory subtype and 4.79% (95% CI: 0.11–14.61) for the gastrointestinal subtype. The pooled prevalence for Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office and South-East Asia Regional Office was 100% (95% CI: 82.35–100.00) and 2.61% (95% CI: 1.74–3.62). This rate of coinfection poses a great danger towards patients, especially those in critical condition. Although there are multiple complications and adverse effects related to extensive use of antibiotics to treat patients with COVID-19, it seems there is no other option except applying them, and it needs to be done carefully.