According to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, secondary bacterial pneumonia is a key driver of death in patients with COVID-19. The researchers discovered that secondary bacterial lung infection (pneumonia) was particularly frequent in COVID-19 patients, impacting nearly half of those who required mechanical ventilation.

Cytokines serve an important role in normal immunological responses, but having a large number of them generated in the body at once can be damaging. Dr. Benjamin Singer, an associate professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, US, and senior author of the study, noted that the findings of the study highlighted the importance of prevention, diagnosis, and aggressive treatment of secondary bacterial pneumonia in critically ill patients with severe pneumonia, including those with COVID-19.

In the study, the researchers enrolled 585 patients from the intensive care unit (ICU) at Northwestern Memorial Hospital with severe pneumonia and respiratory failure. 190 participants out of the 585 participants were diagnosed with COVID-19. The findings of the study showed that more than half of patients with COVID-19 develop secondary ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia.

The patients were also included in the Successful Clinical Response to Pneumonia Therapy (SCRIPT) research, an observational trial designed to find novel biomarkers and therapeutics for patients with severe pneumonia. An experienced panel of ICU physicians employed cutting-edge analysis of lung samples taken as part of clinical treatment as part of SCRIPT to identify and judge the outcomes of subsequent pneumonia occurrences.

Dr. Richard Wunderink, who leads the Successful Clinical Response in Pneumonia Therapy Systems Biology Centre at Northwestern, stated that the importance of bacterial superinfection of the lung as a contributor to death in patients with COVID-19 has been underappreciated because most centers have not looked for it or have only looked at outcomes in terms of the presence or absence of bacterial superinfection rather than whether treatment is successful or not. 

(Source: https://theprint.in/india/secondary-bacterial-infection-not-cytokine-storm-key-driver-of-covid-deaths-study/1557375/ )