Introduction
As of December 2020, COVID-19 has been responsible for more than 63
million infections and over 1.5 million deaths worldwide [1]. The
common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, cough, dyspnea, fatigue, myalgia,
and diarrhea. Most of these symptoms are also falling within the
definition of influenza-like illness [2,3]. In France, SARS-CoV-2
first wave struck from late February to the end of April, coinciding
with the very end of the winter-associated viruses’ epidemic this year
and raising the question of potential viral co-infections with
SARS-CoV-2 and their impact.
A few studies reported cases of SARS-CoV2 co-infection with other
respiratory viruses, and a meta-analysis estimated the prevalence of
those viral co-infections to 3% [4–7]. However, none of the
included studies has used systematic wide range PCR methods. Moreover,
there is no data on the impact of SARS-CoV-2 viral co-infection on
disease severity and clinical outcomes.
Here, we take advantage of the systematic multiplex PCR (mPCR) testing
of patients hospitalized for respiratory tract infection during the
first SARS-CoV-2 epidemic wave to assess the cocirculation of all
respiratory viruses with SARS-CoV-2, the number of SARS-CoV-2 viral
co-infections, and the clinical features of such co-infections.