Viral-bacterial co-infection

The influenza pandemics have demonstrated the harmful effects of viral-bacterial co-infection. However, the viral-bacterial co-infection patterns and their clinical outcomes have not been well characterised before due to limited sample size. This study is the largest retrospective cohort study which contains over 1,000 cases with laboratory-confirmed viral-bacterial co-infection. The team found that bacterial co-infection is associated with increased ICU admission rate and mortality. As a result, active surveillance and early antibiotic treatment may help to improve outcomes in patients with respiratory viral infection. (EClinicalMedicine. 2021 Jun 10;37:100955. doi: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.100955. eCollection 2021 Jul.)

Anyone interested in future collaboration in this field of research is welcome to contact our key investigator Prof. Lin ZHANG from the Department of Medicine & Therapeutics, CUHK. Prof. Zhang’s research focuses on cell biology, microbiology and immunology.