The nosocomial infection survey among patients suffering from the Coronavirus disease-2019 hospitalized in Ayatollah Rouhani Hospital, Babol

TL;DR

This study examines the prevalence of hospital-acquired infections in COVID-19 patients and finds that many bacteria isolated are resistant to antibiotics.

Contribution

The study provides insights into the occurrence of nosocomial infections and antibiotic resistance in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

Findings

Six out of 250 hospitalized patients had nosocomial infections.

Most bacteria isolated were resistant to antibiotics, particularly β-lactams.

Remdesivir was the most prescribed medication for patients.

Abstract

Having a weakened immune system can make patients easily get nosocomial infection (NI) with multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria and put them in a dangerous situation. It causes long hospital stays, disability, economic burden, and even death. The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of NI in patients suffering from COVID-19.

In this retrospective study, the information on 250 patients suffering from COVID-19 in the intensive care unit (ICU) (2020 to 2021) was considered. For statistical analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA), paired samples t-test, and chi-square using SPSS-23 software were used (p<0.05).

Two hundred and fifty hospitalized (107 females and 143 males, mean ± standard deviation (SD) of age; 56.50 ± 17.20) patients were considered. The most (97.60%) medicine prescribed was remdesivir. Candida spp. (two females), Escherichia coli (two females), Acinetobacter spp. (one female), Citrobacter spp. (one female), Pseudomonas spp. (one male), Sphingomonas spp. (one male), Stenotrophomonas spp. (one male) and Enterobacter spp. (one male) were isolated from the patient’s specimens. Four of seven bacterial isolates were positive for MDR. NI was diagnosed in six patients. There was no significant relationship between the age with the isolated microbes (P=0.154) and MDR (P=0.987) and also between gender with common microbes (P=0.576) and MDR (P=0.143).

The coexistence of bacteria and NI was observed in patients. Remdesivir was prescribed for most patients. Most bacteria were resistant to antibiotics, especially, β-lactams.

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