Bacteraemia variation during the COVID-19 pandemic; a multi-centre UK secondary care ecological analysis
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Background – We investigated for change in blood stream infections (BSI) with Enterobacterales, coagulase negative staphylococci (CoNS), Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus aureus during the first UK wave of SARS-CoV-2 across five London hospitals.
Methods – A retrospective multicentre ecological analysis was undertaken evaluating all blood cultures taken from adults from 01 April 2017 to 30 April 2020 across five acute hospitals in London. Linear trend analysis and ARIMA models allowing for seasonality were used to look for significant variation.
Results –119,584 blood cultures were included. At the height of the UK SARS-CoV-2 first wave in April 2020, Enterobacterales bacteraemias were at an historic low across two London trusts (63/3814, 1.65%), whilst all CoNS BSI were at an historic high (173/3814, 4.25%). This differed significantly for both Enterobacterales (p=0.013), CoNS central line associated BSIs (CLABSI) (p<0.01) and CoNS non-CLABSI (p<0.01), when compared with prior periods, even allowing for seasonal variation. S. pneumoniae (p=0.631) and S. aureus (p=0.617) BSI did not vary significant throughout the study period.
Conclusions – Significantly fewer than expected Enterobacterales BSI occurred during the UK peak of the COVID-19 pandemic; identifying potential causes, including potential unintended consequences of national self-isolation public health messaging, is essential. High rates of CoNS BSI, with evidence of increased CLABSI, but also likely contamination associated with increased use of personal protective equipment, may result in inappropriate antimicrobial use and indicates a clear area for intervention during further waves.
Methods – A retrospective multicentre ecological analysis was undertaken evaluating all blood cultures taken from adults from 01 April 2017 to 30 April 2020 across five acute hospitals in London. Linear trend analysis and ARIMA models allowing for seasonality were used to look for significant variation.
Results –119,584 blood cultures were included. At the height of the UK SARS-CoV-2 first wave in April 2020, Enterobacterales bacteraemias were at an historic low across two London trusts (63/3814, 1.65%), whilst all CoNS BSI were at an historic high (173/3814, 4.25%). This differed significantly for both Enterobacterales (p=0.013), CoNS central line associated BSIs (CLABSI) (p<0.01) and CoNS non-CLABSI (p<0.01), when compared with prior periods, even allowing for seasonal variation. S. pneumoniae (p=0.631) and S. aureus (p=0.617) BSI did not vary significant throughout the study period.
Conclusions – Significantly fewer than expected Enterobacterales BSI occurred during the UK peak of the COVID-19 pandemic; identifying potential causes, including potential unintended consequences of national self-isolation public health messaging, is essential. High rates of CoNS BSI, with evidence of increased CLABSI, but also likely contamination associated with increased use of personal protective equipment, may result in inappropriate antimicrobial use and indicates a clear area for intervention during further waves.
Date Issued
2021-06-11
Date Acceptance
2021-05-07
Citation
BMC Infectious Diseases, 2021, 21, pp.1-9
ISSN
1471-2334
Publisher
BioMed Central
Start Page
1
End Page
9
Journal / Book Title
BMC Infectious Diseases
Volume
21
Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/l.moore
Subjects
Blood culture
Coronavirus
Microbiology
SARS-CoV-2
Adult
Bacteremia
Bacteria
COVID-19
Humans
Pandemics
Retrospective Studies
Secondary Care
United Kingdom
0605 Microbiology
1103 Clinical Sciences
1108 Medical Microbiology
Microbiology
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United Kingdom
Article Number
ARTN 556
Date Publish Online
2021-06-11