Seroprevalence of community-acquired atypical bacterial pneumonia among adult COVID-19 patients from a single center in Al Madinah Al Munawarah, Saudi Arabia: A retrospective cohort study.

Objectives: To investigate the seroprevalence of the community-acquired bacterial that causes atypical pneumonia among confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) patients.

Methods: In this cohort study, we retrospectively investigated the seroprevalence of , , and among randomly selected 189 confirmed COVID-19 patients at their time of hospital presentation via commercial immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies against these bacteria. We also carried out quantitative measurements of procalcitonin in patients' serum.

Results: The seropositivity for was 12.6%, with significant distribution among patientsolder than 50 years (χ2 test, =0.009), while those of was 6.3% and was 2.1%, indicating an overall co-infection rate of 21% among COVID-19 patients. No significant difference (χ2 test, =0.628) in the distribution of bacterial co-infections existed between male and female patients. Procalcitonin positivity was confirmed amongst 5% of co-infected patients.

Conclusion: Our study documented the seroprevalence of community-acquired bacteria co-infection among COVID-19 patients. In this study, procalcitonin was an inconclusive biomarker for non-severe bacterial co-infections among COVID-19 patients. Consideration and proper detection of community-acquired bacterial co-infection may minimize misdiagnosis during the current pandemic and positively reflect disease management and prognosis.