Researchers at Cambridge University have developed a DNA test to help detect high-risk secondary infections that may develop during COVID-19 treatment – such as cases of seizures involving shower equipment provided during intensive care.
Patients under mechanical ventilation are usually given anti-inflammatory drugs to relieve their lungs, but this may make them more susceptible to hospital-acquired germs and fungi.
The trial, developed at Cambridge University Hospitals in collaboration with Public Health England, is designed to identify the disease and help recommend the appropriate course of antibiotics.
The method – which promises to be much faster than cultivating bacterial samples in a laboratory, takes about four hours to pick up 52 different pathogens – is currently being rolled out to suppliers. healthcare under the university’s NHS Foundation Trust.
“Early in the pandemic we noticed that COVID-19 patients appeared to be particularly at risk of developing secondary pneumonia, and we began using a rapid diagnostic test that we had developed for just such a situation, “said Andrew Conway Morris, of the Cambridge Department of Medicine, who co – authored a paper examining levels of ventilation – related seizures among COVID-19 patients.
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“Using this test, we found that patients with COVID-19 were twice as likely to develop secondary pneumonia than other patients in the same intensive care unit,” Morris said. As for the cause, people with severe infections tend to spend more time on air conditioners, and may have an immune system that is not poorly regulated or against the virus.
It also marks one of the first times a high-throughput PCR series has been used in routine university clinical practice in such a way.
“We found that while patients with COVID-19 were more likely to develop secondary pneumonia, the bacteria that caused these infections were similar to those in ICU patients without COVID-19,” said Cambridge researcher and lead study author Malis Maes. “This means that standard antibiotic protocols can be applied in COVID-19 patients.”