Characteristics and outcome of COVID-19 patients admitted to the ICU during the pandemic : a pilot study

Abstract

SARS COV-2 is one of the serious and damaging pandemics of the third millennium. The novel corona virus presents with serious clinical manifestations including severe pneumonia in addition to other extra-pulmonary manifestations. Patients who develop critical pneumonia require hospital admission. The presence co-infections with SARS COV-2 may be exacerbate mortality. This project was a pilot study that aimed to investigate the clinical outcome of patients infected with COVID-19 and admitted to ICU. Co-infection with other pathogens was also investigated in order to correlate the severity of symptoms in these patients that could be correlated with presence of more than on pathogen. 50% of the patients had fever, dry cough, dyspnea, and fatigue. Moreover, oxygen therapy was needed in 20% of the symptomatic individuals who required hospitalization. The samples were considered negative for bacterial and viral co-infections indicating pure COVID-19 infection.