Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Mar 29;16(3):e57227.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.57227. eCollection 2024 Mar.

Relationship Between COVID-19 and Linezolid-Resistant Enterococci: A Retrospective Single-Center Study

Amber Kumar  1 , Akhil Taneja  1 , Yogendra Pal Singh  1 , Gaurav Pratap Singh  1 , Saurabh Jain  1 , Suchitra Jain  2
Affiliations

Relationship Between COVID-19 and Linezolid-Resistant Enterococci: A Retrospective Single-Center Study

Amber Kumar et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

Aim and objectives: To evaluate the correlation between whether the COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be a great premise for increasing the incidence of linezolid resistance infections.

Materials and method: The current retrospective study included data from March 2018 to March 2023 from a single center. The clinical records of the patients were reviewed to extract clinical data. Data gathered from medical records included demographic information, the type of specimen taken, the organism identified, and its sensitivity. Antibiotic susceptibility testing and bacterial identification are both done using the fully automated VITEK system.

Results: The total number of samples collected in all the groups, i.e., Group 1 (PRE-COVID), Group 2 (COVID), and Group 3 (POST-COVID), were 201, 127, and 1315, respectively. Out of a total of 201 samples in Group 1, i.e., from March 2018 to February 2020, 47 (23.38%) samples were collected from blood, 104 (51.74%) samples were collected from urine, and the rest of the samples were collected from other sources (pus, sputum, wound, stool, pleural fluid, etc.). In Group 2, i.e., from March 2020 to February 2021, the total number of samples collected was 127, of which 21 were collected from blood, 86 were from urine, and the remaining 20 samples were from other sources. A total of 1315 samples were collected between March 2021 and February 2023, i.e., in Group 3, 598 samples were collected from blood and 548 samples from urine. The most common isolates in the study were Enterococcus faecalis (35.7%) and Enterococcus faecium (61.0%).

Conclusion: A new threat seems to be emerging in the era of COVID-19, the Enterococcus genus. Though the mechanism remains unidentified, the viral infection seems to cause changes in the bacterial flora, favoring Enterococcus and increasing gut permeability, which provides the perfect environment for Enterococcus bacteria to develop invasive infections. In our study, the prevalence of linezolid resistance was 18.2% for five years.

Keywords: antimicrobial resistance; enterococcus faecalis; enterococcus faecium; multidrug resistance; vancomycin resistant enterococci.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Drug susceptibility to linezolid resistance samples
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. The Enterococcus: a model of adaptability to its environment. García-Solache M, Rice LB. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2019;32 - PMC - PubMed
    1. he global prevalence of daptomycin, tigecycline, and linezolid-resistant Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium strains from human clinical samples: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Dadashi M, Sharifian P, Bostanshirin N, et al. Front Med (Lausanne) 2021;8:720647. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Mechanisms of linezolid resistance among enterococci of clinical origin in Spain—detection of optrA- and cf.(D)-carrying E. faecalis. Ruiz-Ripa L, Feßler AT, Hanke D, et al. Microorganisms. 2020;8 - PMC - PubMed
    1. The emerging problem of linezolid-resistant enterococci. Bi R, Qin T, Fan W, Ma P, Gu B. J Glob Antimicrob Resist. 2018;13:11–19. - PubMed
    1. Linezolid resistance in Enterococcus faecalis associated with urinary tract infections of patients in a tertiary hospitals in China: resistance mechanisms, virulence, and risk factors. Ma X, Zhang F, Bai B, et al. Front Public Health. 2021;9:570650. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources