Since bacterial pneumonia is relatively frequent, suspicion of it in COVID-19 patients may prompt ICU clinicians to overuse (broad-spectrum) antibiotics, particularly when empirical antibiotics do not cover the suspected pathogen. We showed that a PCR-based, culture-independent laboratory assay allows not only accurate diagnosis but also streamlining of antimicrobial therapy for bacterial pneumonia episodes.
Rapid detection of the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant in patients’ respiratory tract samples may influence therapeutic choices, because this variant is known to escape from certain monoclonal antibodies. Our findings strengthen the importance of manufacturers’ efforts to improve the existing COVID-19 diagnostic PCR assays and/or to develop novel variant-specific PCR assays.
Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 pose more important public health concerns than the previously circulating Alpha or Delta variants, particularly regarding the efficacy of anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and therapeutics. Precise identification of these variants highly requires performant PCR-based assays that allow us to reduce the reliance on NGS-based assays, which remain the reference method in this topic.
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