The BioFire® RP2.1 Panel Did Not Identify Concurrent Respiratory Virus Infection in Adults with Variable SARS-CoV-2 Disease Severity and Infection Duration

Kendra M Quicke; Bridget A Baxter; Sophia Stromberg; Emily N Gallichotte; Emily Fitzmeyer; Michael C Young; Kristy L Pabilonia; Nicole Ehrhart; Julie Dunn; Gregory D Ebel; Elizabeth P Ryan

doi:10.1155/2022/1378482

The BioFire® RP2.1 Panel Did Not Identify Concurrent Respiratory Virus Infection in Adults with Variable SARS-CoV-2 Disease Severity and Infection Duration

Adv Virol. 2022 Aug 8:2022:1378482. doi: 10.1155/2022/1378482. eCollection 2022.

Affiliations

¹ Arthropod-Borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins 80526, CO, USA.
² Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins 80523, CO, USA.
³ Columbine Health Systems Center for Healthy Aging and Department of Clinical Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins 80523, CO, USA.
⁴ University of Colorado Health, Medical Center of the Rockies, Loveland 80538, CO, USA.

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 emerged in 2019 and rapidly surged into a global pandemic. The rates of concurrent infection with other respiratory pathogens and the effects of possible coinfections on the severity of COVID-19 cases and the length of viral infection are not well defined. In this retrospective study, nasopharyngeal swab samples collected in Colorado between March 2020 and May 2021 from SARS-CoV-2 PCR-positive individuals were tested for a panel of 21 additional respiratory pathogens, including 17 viral and 4 bacterial pathogens. We detected significant positive correlations between levels of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and infectious virus titers for both cohorts, as well as a positive correlation between viral RNA levels and disease severity scores for one cohort. We hypothesized that severe COVID-19 cases and longer SARS-CoV-2 infections may be associated with concurrent respiratory infections. Only one individual exhibited evidence of a concurrent infection- SARS -CoV-2 and human rhinovirus/enterovirus- leading us to conclude that viral respiratory coinfections were uncommon during this time and thus not responsible for the variations in disease severity and infection duration observed in the two cohorts examined. Mask wearing and other public health measures were imposed in Colorado during the time of collection and likely contributed to low rates of coinfection.