Co-infection of COVID-19 patients with atypical bacteria: A study based in Jordan

Objective

The aim of this work was to know the prevalence of Chlamydophila pneumoniae and Mycoplasma pneumoniae in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients in Jordan. Also, to assess a TaqMan real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay in detecting these two bacteria.

Methods

This is a retrospective study performed over the last five months of the 2021. All nasopharyngeal specimens from COVID-19 patients were tested for C. pneumonia, and M. pneumoniae. The C. pneumoniae Pst-1 gene and M. pneumoniae P1 cytadhesin protein gene were the targets.

Results

In this study, 14 out of 175 individuals with confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection (8.0%) were co-infected with C. pneumoniae or M. pneumoniae. Co-infection with SARS-CoV-2 and C. pneumoniae was reported in 5 (2.9%) patients, while 9 (5.1%) patients had M. pneumoniae and SARS-CoV-2 co-infection. The mean (± std) of the correlation coefficient of the calibration curve for real-time PCR analysis was -0.993 (± 0.001) for C. pneumoniae and -0.994 (± 0.003) for M. pneumoniae. The mean amplification efficiencies of C. pneumoniae and M. Pneumoniae were 187.62% and 136.86%, respectively.

Conclusion

In this first study based in Jordan, patients infected with COVID-19 have a low rate of atypical bacterial co-infection. However, clinicians should suspect co-infections with both common and uncommon bacteria in COVID-19 patients. Large prospective investigations are needed to give additional insight on the true prevalence of these co-infections and their impact on the clinical course of COVID-19 patients.