Mucormycosis, The Black Fungus alarming Coinfections in Covid-19 Patients

Abstract

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has emerged as a global pandemic causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It was firstly reported in Hubei province in the People’s Republic of China and spread worldwide quickly. The COVID-19 affects every person differently, from mild to life-threatening symptoms (Nawaz, 2020), along with other bacterial or fungal co-infections (CDC., 2021). The COVID-19 affected patients are prone to develop severe opportunistic infections (Salehi et al., 2020). The immune system of SARS-COV-2 infected patients becomes vulnerable to these opportunistic infections if some comorbidities (diabetes, pulmonary disease) or immunocompromised conditions (steroid therapy, hospital stay, and ventilation) are present. The development of infections such as Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia, bloodstream candida, pulmonary aspergillosis, and oropharyngeal candidiasis have been reported in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients (Moorthy et al., 2021). A few case reports of rhino-orbital mucormycosis in COVID-19 have been reported (Mehta et al., 2020). One such study was reported by (Sen et al., 2021), in which they presented a series of six cases of COVID-19 disease with rhino-orbital mucormycosis. Only one patient in this series had concurrent COVID-19 and mucormycosis at hospital admission, while five patients developed mucormycosis during treatment for COVID-19. Recent studies in Pakistan have reported an increased number of cases of mucormycosis, also known as “black fungus” in COVID-19 patients (The News., 2021).