This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Influenza A H1N1, CA-MRSA coinfection fatal in two pediatric patients
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The first case reports of concomitant influenza A H1N1 and community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection indicate that the presence of both pathogens may lead to rapid disease progression and death.
Findings were presented in a poster session at the 49th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in San Francisco this weekend.
A 9-year-old black girl (patient one) and a 15-year-old black boy (patient two) were admitted to the same ICU within 48 hours of each other with septic shock and bacterial pneumonia. Blood and tracheal cultures were positive for USA300 CA-MRSA. Both were placed on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation within hours and administered vancomycin. Patient one was also prescribed oseltamivir.
Labs upon admission were as follows: white blood cell counts 0.7 for patient one and 0.2 for patient two; serum creatinine levels of 1.0 and 5.6; total bilirubin levels 1.0 and 2.2.
Patient one died 11 days after admission with a white blood cell count of 50.3, serum creatinine at 0.02 and total bilirubin at 57.1. Patient two died three days following admission with a white blood count of 4.0, serum creatinine at 3.6 and total bilirubin at 11.7.
Autopsies revealed necrotizing bacterial pneumonia and tracheal blood cultures positive for MRSA in both patients. Influenza A H1N1 could not be confirmed in the first patient, but was cultured from lung, brain, spinal fluid and nasopharyngeal tissues in patient two. – by Nicole Blazek
For more information: