ABSTRACT
Aim and background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has a high incidence of patients with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Many of these patients require admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) for invasive ventilation and are at very high risk of developing ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP).1-3 Objectives: To study the incidence and mortality of VAP of ventilated COVID-19 patients. Materials and methods: We retrospectively collected data on all patients hospitalized for COVID-19 during the first phase of the epidemic in a 9 bed ICU who were on invasive mechanical ventilation for >48 h. We studied the characteristics of VAP in these patients. VAP was diagnosed based on official recommendations. Results: Data of 55 patients was analyzed. Of these 23 (41.8%) had VAP. Patients with VAP required a greater number of ventilatory days (13.6 ± 6.2 vs 6 ± 4) and underwent more tracheostomies [9 (39.13%) vs 1 (3.13%)]. Length of ICU and hospital stay were significantly prolonged in COVID-19 VAP group 17.9 ± 11 vs 9.18 ± 6.11 days (p = 0.0002) and 18.3 ± 11 vs 9.9 ± 6.4 days (p = 0.0004), respectively. Also, organ involvement was significantly higher in the VAP group. Patients in both group had similar mortality, VAP - 15 (65.2%) vs non VAP - 18 (56.25%). Conclusion: COVID-19 is associated with an increased risk of VAP, which is not fully explained by the prolonged duration of ventilation. Complications like organ involvement and prolonged ventilatory days are common in COVID-19 VAP patients and need to focus on general supportive treatment and organspecific treatment.