Persistence of live virus in critically ill patients infected with SARS-COV-2: a prospective observational study

Background Research on the duration of infectivity of ICU patients with COVID-19 has been sparse. Tests based on Reverse Transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) detect both live virus and non-infectious viral RNA. We aimed to determine the duration of infectiousness based on viral culture of nasopharyngeal samples of patients with COVID-19. Methods Prospective observational study in adult intensive care units with a diagnosis of COVID-19 Pneumonia. Patients had repeated nasopharyngeal sampling performed after day 10 of ICU admission. Culture positive rate (based on viral culture on Vero cells in a level 4 lab) and Cycle threshold from RT-PCR were measured. Results Nine patients of the 108 samples (8.3%, 95% CI 3.9–15.2%) grew live virus at a median of 13 days (interquartile range 11–19) after their initial positive test. 74.1% of patients were RT-PCR positive but culture negative, and the remaining (17.6%) were RT-PCR and culture negative. Cycle threshold showed excellent ability to predict the presence of live virus, with a Ct < 25 with an AUC of 0.90 (95% CI 0.83–0.97, p < 0.001). The specificity of a Ct > 25 to predict negative viral culture was 100% (95% CI 70–100%). Conclusion 8.3% of our ICU patients with COVID-19 grew live virus at a median of 13 days post-initial positive RT-PCR test. Severity of illness, use of mechanical ventilation, and time between tests did not predict the presence of live virus. Cycle threshold of > 25 had the best ability to determine the lack of live virus in these patents.