Publication:

Proportion of secondary bacterial infections among the SARS-COV-2 patients admitted in the selected health facilities in Mombasa and Nairobi counties in Kenya

Background There is still scarcity of evidence on proportion of secondary bacterial infections among SARS-COV-2 patients in Kenya. This study therefore sought to determine the proportion of secondary bacterial infections among SARS-COV-2 patients in ICUs in the selected health facilities in Mombasa and Nairobi Counties.

Methods The retrospective cross-sectional sampled the records of 385 SARS-COV-2 patients admitted and administered antibiotics during treatment in the intensive care units (ICU) in the six health facilities that acted as isolation and treatment centers for SARS-COV-2 patients between 13th March 2020 and 31st December 2021. The research team reviewed the medical records of the SARS-COV-2 positive patients and extracted the patient demographic data, medical history, underlying co-morbidities, clinical symptoms, laboratory findings, management and treatment measures and antimicrobial susceptibility tests.

Results 47.3% of the patients in the study had secondary bacterial infections. Significant majority of patients of these patients were smokers (n=158, 86.8%, p≤0.05), had very high fever at admission in the ICU (n=139, 76.4%, p=0.033) and were administered iron supplement during the hospital stay (n=125, 68.7%, p=0.027).

Conclusions SARS-COV-2 patients who smoke, report high fever at admission in the ICU and given iron supplement during their stay in the health facility tend to have a high prevalence of secondary bacterial infections.