Respiratory Viral Infections in Septic Patients

Respiratory infections that require treatment in a hospital or meet sepsis criteria are commonly thought to be caused by bacteria. However, recent reports indicate that many such infections are caused by respiratory viruses, either alone or with typical bacterial pathogens such as pneumococci, Haemophilus, or Staphylococcus aureus.

Now, investigators at a community hospital in Sweden have performed a prospective epidemiologic study to determine how often viral infections were present in patients with suspected sepsis of respiratory origin during 11 weeks of an influenza epidemic between January and March 2012. Besides routine microbiological sampling with blood cultures and additional tests at the discretion of the treating physician, all pa…