Volume 33, No 7, Jul 2023

ISSN: 1001-0602 
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018 
impact factor 17.848* 
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)

Volume 33 Issue 7, July 2023: 562-564

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Bacterial coinfections contribute to severe COVID-19 in winter

Hui Fan^1,? , Li Zhou^2,? , Jingjun Lv^3,? , Shimin Yang^4,? , Guozhong Chen^1,? , Xinjin Liu^4,? , Chunyan Han^4,? , Xue Tan⁴ , Shengnan Qian⁴ , Zegang Wu⁵ , Shan Yu¹ , Ming Guo⁴ , Chengliang Zhu^5,* , Yu Chen^4,* , Ke Lan^2,4,*

¹State Key Laboratory of Virology, Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Renmin Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China
²Animal Biosafety Level 3 Laboratory/Institute for Vaccine Research, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China
³Department of Emergency, Renmin Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China
⁴State Key Laboratory of Virology, College of Life Sciences, TaiKang Center for Life and Medical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China
⁵Department of Clinical Laboratory, Renmin Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China
^?These authors contributed equally: Hui Fan, Li Zhou, Jingjun Lv, Shimin Yang, Guozhong Chen, Xinjin Liu, Chunyan Han
Correspondence: Chengliang Zhu(zhuchengliang@whu.edu.cn)Yu Chen(chenyu@whu.edu.cn)Ke Lan(klan@whu.edu.cn)

Dear Editor,

Although most cases of COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants are mild or asymptomatic worldwide, coinfection with SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory pathogens may still aggravate the severity of the illness.1,2 The current literature indicates that coinfection with COVID-19 could occur in 3.70%–9.7% of patients.1,3,4 The proportion of bacterial, and other respiratory viral coinfections may range from 3.02% to 9.7% and 5.41% to 6.61%, respectively. However, these studies demonstrated that coinfections with respiratory pathogens are not common. Thus, antibacterial therapy and diagnostic tests are considered to be unnecessary upon admission for most patients hospitalized with COVID-19.3,5

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41422-023-00821-3

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