Optimizing diagnostic strategy for novel coronavirus pneumonia, a multi-center study in Eastern China

Jing-Wen Ai; Hao-Cheng Zhang; Teng Xu; Jing Wu; Mengqi Zhu; Yi-Qi Yu; Han-Yue Zhang; Zhongliang Shen; Yang Li; Xian Zhou; Guo-Qing Zang; Jie Xu; Wen-Jing Chen; Yong-Jun Li; De-Sheng Xie; Ming-Zhe Zhou; Jing-Ying Sun; Jia-Zhen Chen; Wen-Hong Zhang

In the previous articles, researchers found severe ICU patients had coinfections of bacteria and fungi 19 . It probably occurred secondary to severe ARDS or large dose or long time of glucocorticoid therapy. The common pathogen included A. baumannii, K. pneumoniae, A flavus, C. glabrata, and C. albicans. However in our study, we found 5 co-infection virus cases other than the common bacterial and fungi, including influenza, rhino/enterovirus, respiratory syncytial viral and etc, suggesting that virus co-infection may be the common phenomena in winter pneumonia cases. Thus, positive pathogen results (especially virus and atypical pathogens, which is a type of common pathogens detection in unexplained pneumonia) cannot be the exclusive criteria to COVID-2019 during unexplained pneumonia diagnosis.