Azithromycin a treatment for COVID-19?
Antec Scientific contribution to the treatment of COVID-19 with Azithromycin
Leiden, NL (8. April 2020). You may be wondering what Antec Scientific ALEXYS™ Antibiotics Analyzer has to do with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 first occurred in Wuhan, China, causing a worldwide pandemic respiratory disease COVID-19.
As a matter of fact secondary bacterial infections (co-infections, superinfections) are a major risk factor for adverse COVID-19 outcomes. A recent study from China published in the Lancet (Zhou et al., 2020) found that 27 out of 28 patients with bacterial co-infections died (96%). Staphylococcus aureus is the main cause of secondary infections in influenza but Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae are also commonly found, although it is not yet known which pathogens are associated with secondary infections in COVID-19, except for the known Acinetobacter Baumannii, a typically hospital acquired (nosocomial) infection.
Almost all hospitalized patients receive immediately empirical antibiotic treatment to strengthen the immune system and to reduce further complications by ventilation associated bacterial co-infections and to reduce mortality. Azithromycin is one of the antibiotics that has been widely applied for light as well as heavily infected COVID-19 patients (China, Italy, Spain and now worldwide). In a new French study published in Intl. Journal Antimicrob Agents (Gautret et al., 2020), early evidence was also found that the combination of hydroxychloroquine, a popular anti-malarial drug and antibiotic azithromycin could be especially effective in treating the COVID-19 coronavirus and reducing the duration of the virus in patients.
