Elsevier

Microbes and Infection

Volume 24, Issue 8, November–December 2022, 105039
Microbes and Infection

Review
COVID-19 and Fungal infections: a double debacle

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micinf.2022.105039Get rights and content
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Abstract

Fungal infections remain hardly treatable because of unstandardized diagnostic tests, limited antifungal armamentarium, and more specifically, potential toxic interactions between antifungals and immunosuppressants used during anti-inflammatory therapies, such as those set up in critically ill COVID-19 patients. Taking into account pre-existing difficulties in treating vulnerable COVID-19 patients, any co-occurrence of infectious diseases like fungal infections constitutes a double debacle for patients, healthcare experts, and the public economy. Since the first appearance of SARS-CoV-2, a significant rise in threatening fungal co-infections in COVID-19 patients has been testified in the scientific literature. Better management of fungal infections in COVID-19 patients is, therefore, a priority and requires highlighting common risk factors, relationships with immunosuppression, as well as challenges in fungal diagnosis and treatment. The present review attempts to highlight these aspects in the three most identified causative agents of fungal co-infections in COVID-19 patients: Aspergillus, Candida, and Mucorales species.

Keywords

Fungal infections
COVID-19
Aspergillus
Mucoromycetes
Pneumocystis
Candida

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