The Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of the Co-infection for the Detection of SARSCOV- 2 and Influenza A Virus by rRT-PCR

Abstract

The potential for co-infection with COVID-19 and other respiratory infections raises the possibility that a new severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) mimics the influenza A virus regarding methods and modes of transmission, clinical features, related immune responses, and seasonal coincidence. This study aimed to investigate the presence of SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A virus coinfections inadmitted patients of a tertiary care hospital. In this study, the total included 589 admitted patients in our tertiary care hospital. The detectionof co-infection between SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A virus by real-time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) in a patientduring the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 207 (35.1%) patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 and 43 (7.3%) patientsinfected with the influenza A virus. Only 6 (1.0%) patients were infected with SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A viruses. The females were morelikely to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 than non-infected SARS-CoV-2 case-patients (60.9% (n = 126) vs. 31.4% (n = 120), and also with theinfluenza A virus compared with influenza-negative patients (40.9% (n = 223) vs. 55.9% (n = 24). In conclusion, our results strongly suggestthat influenza A co-infects with SARS-CoV-2. The patients with SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A co-infection had similar clinical characteristics asthose with SARS-CoV-2 infection alone. Comorbidities, like hypertension and diabetes, and increasing age make patients more susceptible toSARS-CoV-2 and influenza A coinfections.