Coinfection or secondary infection is not uncommon for COVID-19 patients, especially for patients with a critical illness (1). The appropriate antibiotic should be indicated for the population, however, we should also seriously concerned about another important issue about the possible altered antimicrobial resistance due to the increasing use of antibiotics during the COVID-19 pandemic (2-4). Therefore, we conducted this study to assess the change of antibiotic resistance before and after the COVID-19 outbreak using an open database-Taiwan Nosocomial Infection surveillance System (TNIS). The TNIS was launched by Taiwan Centers for Disease Control in 2007, which aimed to monitor the occurrence of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and to assess the epidemiologic trends of HAIs. In addition to HAI, this system also provided the antimicrobial susceptibility results from reporting hospitals, including a medical center and regional hospitals. This study used the recent report of TNIS, which showed the surveillance results of HAI and associated antimicrobial resistance to this June, for analysis (5). Percentage (%) change was defined as the difference in the number of antibiotic resistance rates between 2020 and 2019, divided by the resistance rate in 2019 and multiplied by 100
Key words: Antimicrobial resistance, COVID-19, Taiwan
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