Secondary lung infections are open to a whole host of buggers. Not just Staphylococcus aureus, but Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Moraxella catarrhalis.
“Atypical” bacteria are Coxiella burnetti, Chlamydophila pneumoniae, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, and Legionella pneumophila.
That is why it may not be such a bad idea to use a broad spectrum antibacterial agent if the patient is in a high risk group and it looks like their influenza is going acute. No time to spare.
We had a local healthy teen go from cold symptoms to admitted to the ICU in less than 24 hours. Despite multiple broad spectrum antibiotics, he was dead in 4 days. I just recently heard that he was confirmed H1N1 but they think it was the MRSA that killed him.
I hope people are taking the flu vaccine more seriously this year. There are still people posting here stating that they won’t take the vaccine.