The COVID-19 pandemic is responsible for many hospitalizations in intensive care units (ICU), with widespread use of invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) which exposes patients to the risk of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). The characteristics of VAP in COVID-19 patients remain unclear.

Our study showed an unusually high incidence of VAP in patients admitted to the ICU for severe COVID-19, even though our services were not inundated during the first wave of the epidemic. We also noted a significant proportion of enterobacteria. VAP-associated complications (abscess, empyema) were not exceptional.

We analyzed data from 188 patients. Of these patients, 48.9% had VAP and 19.7% experienced multiple episodes. Our study showed an incidence of 39.0 VAP per 1000 days of IMV (until the first VAP episode) and an incidence of 33.7 VAP per 1000 days of IMV (including all 141 episodes of VAP).

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