Methicillin-Sensitive Staphylococcus aureus Co-infection in Adolescent Patients With Delta-Variant SARS-CoV-2 Acute Respiratory Failure

Courtney M Cox; Mireille Liboiron; Heather L Young; Sanjiv Pasala; Matthew P Malone

doi:10.7759/cureus.52164

Methicillin-Sensitive Staphylococcus aureus Co-infection in Adolescent Patients With Delta-Variant SARS-CoV-2 Acute Respiratory Failure

Cureus. 2024 Jan 12;16(1):e52164. doi: 10.7759/cureus.52164. eCollection 2024 Jan.

Authors

Courtney M Cox¹, Mireille Liboiron¹, Heather L Young², Sanjiv Pasala¹, Matthew P Malone¹

Affiliations

¹ Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, USA.
² Pediatric Infectious Diseases, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, USA.

Abstract

We report a series of five pediatric patients admitted with acute respiratory failure due to delta-variant SARS-CoV-2, found to have a methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) co-infection. All five patients required escalation of their respiratory support within 24 hours of discovering the MSSA infections. Four out of the five patients received immune-modulating therapies. Four patients required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support. One patient died, and the other four survived until hospital discharge. Clinicians should consider secondary bacterial infections in patients with COVID-19 treated with immune modulators. MSSA co-infection can lead to increased morbidity and mortality in patients with COVID-19.

Keywords: covid-19; extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ecmo); immune modulation therapy; pediatric ards; pediatric intensive care unit (picu); va ecmo; vv ecmo.

Publication types

Case Reports