Challenges of the Global COVID-19 Pandemic and Invasive Fungal Pathogens in SARS-COV-2 Associations: A Dangerous Relationship

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 is a rapidly transmissible pneumonia-like illness caused by SARS-CoV-2 that out broke in China in 2019 and is currently circulating worldwide. In the current context of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, complications are observed in clinical settings for the treatment of severe COVID-19 disease in nosocomial settings, due to cases of fungal co-infections. Objective: To carry out a review on fungal infections associated with respiratory infections caused by COVID-19 (Sars-Cov-2) and their aggravation. Methodology: The purpose of this study is to inform the reader about the characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 and the main fungal species that are affecting patients undergoing treatment for severe COVID-19, provoking discussion of the importance of the proposed topic, in relation to co-infections by different fungal microorganisms. Result: 80 scientific studies were selected, resulting from patients with COVID-19 and most commonly observed in patients with a history of comorbidities such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, kidney disease, severe liver disease, oncological diseases, obesity and with severe COVID-19. These data do not represent the total number of records of the disease in the world, but cases reported by researchers in their series, showing the overlapping of fungal co-infection through the compromised immune status due to the use of therapeutic drugs, dysregulation of the microbiota, How to cite this paper: Mariscal, A.

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“…Recent research has revealed that strains of A. flavus, the second largest cause and one of the main agents of serious comorbidities, including Aspergillosis; also causing co-infections in patients with severe infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, leading to pulmonary aspergillosis associated with COVID-19 (Mariscal et al, 2023;Simmons et al, 2023) were tested after exposure to the same azoles agricultural products had the MIC (Minimum Inhibitory Concentration) for drugs of the same class, posaconazole, voriconazole and itraconazole increased, showing that agricultural pesticides can, in fact, reduce the effectiveness of antifungals used in the clinic (Meireles et al, 2019).…”