Viral and bacterial co-infection in pneumonia: do we know enough to improve clinical care?

Excerpt

Both bacterial and viral pneumonia are well accepted entities; however, with evolving diagnostics there has been increasing interest in the pathogenesis, epidemiology, presentation, and prognosis of viral pneumonias. In addition, the concept of viral and bacterial co-infections in pneumonia is an area of growing research and may be best recognized among patients with influenza who develop secondary bacterial infections; there was particular interest in this after the 2009 pandemic [1‐4]. However, in the setting of increasing molecular diagnostics, particularly multiplex PCR platforms, there is an opportunity to better define the epidemiology of co-infections and their impact on clinical diagnosis and patient outcomes [5, 6]. There is some evidence that dual infection may worsen patient outcome, including severity of disease and mortality [1, 2]. With this in mind, the article by Voiriot et al. [7], “Viral–bacterial coinfection affects the presentation and alters the prognosis of severe community-acquired pneumonia”, adds to our expanding knowledge base in this arena. …