Emerging Bacterial Pathogens in the COVID-19 Era: -A Case in Point.

In the ongoing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic, a long hospital stay and empirical broad-spectrum antibiotics make the patients prone to acquire nosocomial infections especially with unconventional organisms, and is one such rare nosocomial pathogen.  The given study is a case-series-based study conducted from September 2020 to April 2021 in which clinically suspected pneumonia patients who recovered from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were included.  Seventeen isolates were obtained in pure culture from the tracheal aspirates of nine COVID-19 patients (including repeat samples to rule out colonization) within a period of eight months (September 2020-April 2021). Our records showed that there has been an increase in the number of isolates of obtained in respiratory samples in 2020. We also did a review of literature of all the cases of pneumonia reported till now.  To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study reporting the isolation of this rare pathogen from COVID-19 patients with clinical significance in a large cohort of patients. Therefore, it becomes important to consider this pathogen as a significant cause of respiratory infections, especially in patients recovered post COVID-19.