In a new study, researchers found that early in the U.S. coronavirus pandemic, many people with COVID-19 may have been given unnecessary antibiotics.
They found that of COVID-19 patients admitted between March and May, just over 70% were given antibiotics.
That’s despite the fact that COVID-19 is caused by a virus, and very few of those patients actually had a coexisting bacterial infection.
The research was conducted by a team from one of the hard-hit hospitals in New York City.
Antibiotics kill bacteria but are useless against viral infections such as the common cold, the flu, and COVID-19.
However, someone with a bad case of COVID-19 has all the symptoms that mark bacterial pneumonia.
The team says early on, it wasn’t even clear whether COVID-19, by itself, was “enough” to cause such severe symptoms, or whether those patients often had coexisting bacterial infections.
For ER doctors seeing patients who are so sick—and with antibiotics “at their fingertips”—giving the drugs could seem like the right call.
Of more than 5,800 COVID-19 patients hospitalized from March through May, 71% received at least one antibiotic dose.
Yet an analysis of patients admitted through April 18 found that fewer than 4% actually had a bacterial or fungal “co-infection.”
The findings are based on just one hospital.
But recent other studies have found a very consistent pattern at some other hospitals—with around 70% of COVID-19 patients getting antibiotics, despite low rates of bacterial infections.
The team says that does not mean COVID-19 patients should never get antibiotics before tests confirm a bacterial infection.
Some empiric use of the drugs will continue in hospitals. Empiric means based on doctors’ clinical experience; in some cases, it is reasonable to give antibiotics to a seriously ill patient before test results are in.
But if those results turn out to be negative, antibiotics should be stopped.
The main concern with unnecessary prescribing is that it will feed antibiotic resistance—where bacteria develop defensive strategies against the drugs that kill them.
And in this study, the team found that even in a short time frame, certain bacteria isolated from patients harbored signs of increased resistance.
Antibiotic resistance is already a huge problem in the United States. Each year, almost 3 million Americans fall ill with antibiotic-resistant infections—and more than 35,000 of them die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One author of the study is Dr. Priya Nori, who specializes in infectious diseases at Montefiore Medical Center.
The study is published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.
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