Prevalence of Co-infection during SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic and Association with Respiratory Infections
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Date
2025-03
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Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
Abstract
Background: The diagnostics infrastructure experienced a bottleneck during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most qPCR-based diagnostic settings have primarily aimed at detecting SARS-CoV-2 to isolate the cases and contain the spread of infection. As the number of SARS-CoV-2 cases, which shares a similar transmission mode with other common respiratory viruses surged at alarming rate. The worldwide trend showed a sharp decline in the cases of other respiratory viruses, including influenza A virus. The study aims to evaluate the circulation of different respiratory viruses in the positive and negative samples for SARS-CoV-2, collected from symptomatic individuals. Methods: The RT-qPCR-based detection assays for SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA were used in all the clinical samples collected from the symptomatic individuals. In addition, a qPCR-based diagnostic kit evaluated the prevalence of other respiratory viruses in randomly selected positive and negative samples. Results: Out of 4,123 nasopharyngeal samples tested, 622 were found to be positive for SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA, indicating an overall positivity rate of 15.0%. Among these positive cases, four samples exhibited co-infection with other respiratory viruses. Notably, 34% of the samples that did not contain SARS-CoV-2 were instead found to be infected with other respiratory viruses. Conclusion: Our findings reveal that respiratory viruses, apart from SARS-CoV-2, continue to be widespread in the community. Moreover, the SARS-CoV-2 virus infection is not mutually exclusive, indicative of co-infection with other respiratory viruses. The prevalence of the influenza A virus is also notably high. Therefore, our data suggest that multiplexed-qPCR detection assays could also be employed to screen patients presenting flu-like symptoms for other respiratory viruses.
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Keywords
Co-infection, Influenza, Respiratory viruses, SARS-CoV-2
Citation
Khanna M, Saini S, Manocha N, Goel N.. Prevalence of Co-infection during SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic and Association with Respiratory Infections. The Indian Journal of Chest Diseases and Allied Sciences. 2025 Mar; 67(1): 19-21